It appears that while I was on vacation last week, Kristin Cavallari decided to surreptitiously change the title of her forthcoming memoir, like I would not notice.

The tome, which Kristin promises will cover “really just everything in my life,” is due out in 407 days, and has been advertised for months as Balancing on Heels. A questionable title for a book composed in English, perhaps, but that was Kristin’s choice. When she announced to E! News in January that she was writing a book, she explained:

It’s called Balancing on Heels. Because it’s sort of how I balance everything in my life.

And when she posted on Instagram about working on the book in March, she wrote:

Working away...can’t wait for u guys to read Balancing On Heels [thumbs up emoji].

Balancing on Heels. By Kristin! This is what we’ve been told. Even just weeks ago, Kristin posted a photo on Instagram with this caption:

Just perfected these almond butter cookies. Recipe is going in my book, Balancing On Heels [thumbs up emoji].

But Kristin will balance on heels no more.

What’s she calling her teen vampire novel now, you ask? Thumbs Up Emoji? Balancing on Kristin Cavallari for Chinese Laundry Heels? My Shuffle?

Kristin casually revealed the new title in an Instagram post dated April 18, 2015 (Day 83 of 500).

After ostensibly perusing a list of common prepositions, she captioned the photo below, “Peanut butter chocolate chip cashew ice cream. Yes, it’s ice cream made from cashews and u would never know the difference. Jax can’t get enough! Recipe will be in Balancing In Heels” [emphasis added].

It’s Kristin, not Kriston.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

There are a lot of underrated sex acts, but here’s a big one you’ve probably been ignoring: fingering. Most adults tend to forget about fingering, but I’m going to show you why I think this act deserves a place in any couple’s sexual repertoire, and give you some tips for how to do it properly.

This post also serves as the first installment of a new series we’re doing at Lifehacker: After Hours called Do This Tonight: sex tips you can (and should) try out as soon as you can!

Why You Should Do This Tonight

Before we get into the details of how to become a fingering master, allow me to convince you why you should even bother in the first place.

It’s a Nice Change of Pace

We tend to start our relationships being much more sexually creative and varied, but there’s something about having intercourse that seems to make people forget that other sexual activities are possible. Most established heterosexual couples have long since abandoned fingering. If they do it at all, they do what I call the “let-me-just-pop-my-finger-in-here-real-quick-to-make-sure-it’s-wet-enough-for-my-dick” move. Intercourse can be incredible, but it can also start to feel a little boring and predictable if it’s all you’re doing.

Having an entire sexual session where all you’re doing is fingering her can feel so refreshing and unexpected. Most women haven’t been thoroughly fingered in a very long time. For some, it might even date back to their junior high or high school days, furtively hiding in the back of the movie theater or behind the school gym. Fingering her will instantly breathe some new life into the bedroom, and will remind her that getting fingered used to feel—and can still feel—thrilling.

It Feels Fantastic

Every woman is different, of course, but I think many would agree that getting fingered feels phenomenal. Fingers can give much more focused, deliberate, and intense stimulation than any other body part. You can also use one hand inside of her and the other on her clitoris. The combination of internal and external sensations can feel incredible.

It’s More Likely to Make Her Orgasm than Intercourse

70% of women require clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm. Getting clitoral stimulation during intercourse is possible, but a lot of my female clients tell me they have a hard time focusing on their own pleasure during intercourse. They may feel too embarrassed to ask for clitoral stimulation, or too shy to reach down and do it themselves, and it’s logistically difficult in a lot of positions. Fingering is quite simply one of the easiest ways for women to reach orgasm. You can give her the exact kind of stimulation she needs.

It Lets Her Focus on Receiving

It’s so rare in life that we get the opportunity to just receive. Being able to soak up all of the attention without having to worry about our partner in that moment can feel like such a gift. Plus, being giving and generous towards her may evoke some warm fuzzy feelings for you, and may inspire her to reciprocate next time.

How to Do It

Now let’s get into the real nitty gritty of how to do the deed.

Get Her Permission

Ask her if she’ll let you finger her tonight. Build up some anticipation by sending her this article, or a sexy text. Let her know that tonight it’s going to be all about her, and her only. Tell her how excited you are to lavish attention on her gorgeous body.

Start with Good Tools

Make sure your nails are trimmed and filed, and that you don’t have any bothersome hangnails. Do not cut your nails right before doing the deed, as they’ll be too sharp!

Use Lube

A good fingering requires good lube! I recommend high-quality silicone lubricant like Pjur Eros Bodyglide Original. Silicone lubes feel best against the skin. If you don’t have any on hand or can’t stop off at your friendly local sex shop, coconut oil can do the trick.

Tease Her

Spend plenty of time kissing her, slowly removing her clothes, and running your hands all over her body. Leave her underwear on, and trace your fingertips lightly over the fabric. You want her to be squirming with anticipation before actually getting down to business.

Remember the Basics

Get in a comfortable position that gives you good leverage with both hands. You can sit between her legs while she’s flat on the bed, or have her drape her legs off the edge of a bed or sofa while you kneel between her knees. Use your dominant hand on her clitoris, and your non-dominant hand inside of her. Since the clitoris is so sensitive, you’ll want your more dextrous hand on the job, but you can always switch if you want more power for the hand doing the thrusting. A safe place to start is drawing circles around her clitoris with your thumb, and using two fingers to pump in and out of her vaginal canal. Start off slow and gentle, and gradually build up to more intensity.

Give Her Options and Ask for Feedback

If you’re not sure what she likes, demonstrate two different techniques, and get her feedback about what she likes best. Ask her, “do you like it better when I fuck you with two fingers, like this… or three fingers, like this…” Here are some other techniques to try:

• Going up and down across her clitoris vs left to right
• Thrusting your fingers into her harder vs softer, or deeper vs shallower
• Doing just clitoral stimulation, just internal stimulation, or both at the same time
• Twisting your wrist as you move in and out of her vs using a “come here” motion to stroke her G-spot

Have Fun!

Fingering your lady can be an awful lot of fun. You’re completely in charge of her pleasure, and can watch her respond to your every touch. If she knows you’re enjoying yourself, she’ll have a better time too.

Vanessa Marin is a licensed psychotherapist (#78931) specializing in sex therapy. It’s her mission to take the intimidation out of sex therapy and bring the fun back into the bedroom. Have questions about sex? You can reach her at vanessa.marin@lifehacker.com, or at VMTherapy.com.

Lifehacker: After Hours is a new blog aiming to improve your sex life. Follow us on Twitter here.

There is a common scam car buyers need to be aware of, largely because the best solution to is to not fall for it. Kind of like telling you the best cure for a particular illness is to not get sick. It’s called Curbstoning and it happens every day to naïve car buyers.

You see an ad on Craigslist or your internet marketplace of choice. It is the car you are looking for and the pics look good. You call and speak to the owner and he tells you about the car and says the right things. He’s had it a while, it’s treated him well and he is selling for an innocuous reason. You ask to see the car and he gives you a residential address. You go there and he meets you out at the curb where the car is parked. (Note: An actual curb is not necessary for this transaction but it adds literary merit to this piece.)

You walk around the car and even take it for a test drive. Everything seems legit. You haggle on the price and strike a deal. You pull out your cash and the seller –

1. Pulls out a title in someone else’s name;
2. Pulls out a purchase agreement with the name of a dealer as “Seller”; or,
3. Says the transaction needs to take place at a local dealer where a “friend” of his has agreed to help with the “paperwork” for this transaction.

These kinds of shady deals are all referred to as Curbstone deals. I have personally spoken with many people who have been taken in by deals like this. They usually are being done by people who are dealers pretending to not be dealers or by people who are not dealers but ought to be because they sell too many cars.

In Michigan, if you sell five or more cars in a year, you are required to get a dealer’s license from the state. Similar laws exist in other states. But, many people don’t bother to get licensed. Background checks can be hard to pass because of a felonious past, or maybe they don’t want to pay the small-business-crushing $75 fee. The problem is that the state rarely - if ever - enforces this rule. As a result, non-dealers sell cars all day long from the curbside, the local parking lot, or wherever else they can park a car. Often, they “skip” the title by not recording their own name in the chain - signing the title from the person they bought the car from over to you directly. The upshot of this is it looks as if you bought the car from their seller and the curbstoner manages to stay off the radar.

Some might wonder why an actual dealer would try and sell a car from in front of a house rather from the comfort of their own cramped lot on Eight Mile. Most people feel a little better about a prospective car purchase if they believe they are talking to an actual owner of the car who has spent time living with it rather than just a salesman trying to sell a car he knows nothing about. Many people would come haggle in a front yard long before they’d willingly step inside the twelve square-foot salesroom of “Bob’s A-1 Car Shack.” All else being equal, most people would consider the regular-owner car to be worth more than the curbstoned dealer car.

Strangely enough, curbstoning in Michigan is not illegal in and of itself when done by a licensed dealer. The law says that a dealer must conduct “a large share” of its business at its location - implying that it is allowed to conduct a lesser share of its business elsewhere. Where the transaction gets murky is whether the dealer-seller is truthful and so on about the reason the business is taking place in front of a residence in Ferndale, rather than at the dealership on the other side of Eight Mile in Detroit. Again, laws vary from state to state but this appears to be how it is in many states: the few laws that cover this are rarely enforced.

And because of the large amount of gray in the various areas of the transaction, it is simply better if you avoid the transaction altogether. When you find out that Craigslist has led you down a bad path, walk away. I know, it shatters your world view to believe that a total stranger might try to mislead you for profit on the internet. It’s time you found out the hard way: the internet can be that way.

Follow me on Twitter: @stevelehto

Hear my podcast on iTunes: Lehto’s Law

Steve Lehto has been practicing law for 23 years, almost exclusively in consumer protection and Michigan lemon law. He wrote The Lemon Law Bible and Chrysler’s Turbine Car: The Rise and Fall of Detroit’s Coolest Creation.

This website may supply general information about the law but it is for informational purposes only. This does not create an attorney-client relationship and is not meant to constitute legal advice, so the good news is we’re not billing you by the hour for reading this. The bad news is that you shouldn’t act upon any of the information without consulting a qualified professional attorney who will, probably, bill you by the hour.

On Tuesday, 200 girls and 93 women were rescued from a terrorist camp in the Sambisa Forest by the Nigerian Armed Forces, reports CNN.

An army spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the 200 girls saved Tuesday “are not [the] Chikbok schoolgirls abducted last year” by Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group that continues to viciously terrorize northern Nigeria.

In April 2014, more than 250 schoolgirls were abducted in Chibok, a small village in the country’s northeastern region, and global protests of “Bring Our Girls Back” dotted news feeds for months calling for their return.

Yet despite reported efforts to rescue the band of girls in October, local officials remained skeptical during talks with Boko Haram. As violence in the region escalated, the proposed deal to return the missing schoolgirls faltered when an agreed-upon ceasefire was broken.

[Image via Getty]

Do you need another reason to not work at the Huffington Post? Okay. This afternoon, Arianna Huffington sent out a memo to employees cheerfully announcing that she has made the online class based on her nonsense self-help book Thrive available to them—for free!—via Oprah.com.

Here is the full text of Huffington’s email:

HuffPosters,

I’m excited to let you know that the Oprah team has agreed to offer my six-week Thrive eCourse for free to anyone working at HuffPost.

Over and over again, when I talk about Thrive and the importance of realizing that burnout doesn’t have to be the price we pay for success, the question I am asked more than any other is: “Sure, but how do I go from understanding what I need to do to actually doing it?” I created the course as an answer to that question.

The course begins on May 3rd on Oprah.com. It has great guest teachers, including NBA superstar Kobe Bryant, Warby Parker CEO Dave Gilboa, Wharton professor Adam Grant and author of The Happiness Advantage Shawn Achor. We’ve developed tracking tools to help those taking the course monitor their progress and achieve their goals. And all our steps and practices are based on the latest scientific findings, which we cover so relentlessly on HuffPost, about the importance of sleep, meditation, renewal, and taking time to unplug from our devices.

To learn more and to sign up, just enter your HuffPost email at Oprah.com/ThriveHuffingtonPost

Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder was released last year. The book purports to teach overworked overachievers how to finally discover work/life balance, and has now been turned into a class on Oprah’s website that costs $50 (although that does buy you 40 videos of Arianna Huffington speaking, so...) In her review of the book for Slate, Hanna Rosin pointed out the obvious:

But there is also no way that office yoga can get at the very disease that plagues a workplace like the Huffington Post, which can be summed up by the reaction of one senior writer who received an email announcing the noon yoga class as I was interviewing her: “It would be really nice to do yoga today, but I’m on a deadline and traffic on the metric was low and. … I gotta go, that’s my editor, shit.”

Our future is being worked to death at a clickfarm run by a megalomaniac who attempts to relate to you via an online course delivered by one of the richest people on the planet.

[image via Getty]

Some things you won't see the media put out. BPD Officers socializing and playing w/children in community. @FOP3 pic.twitter.com/xk32afjZ5h

April 28, 2015

TMZ is reporting that beloved singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell fell into a coma recently and has become unresponsive after being rushed to an ICU at the end of March. [Update—Mitchell’s reps deny the rumors.]

She was found unconscious at her home in Los Angeles on March 31 and was taken to an intensive care unit at the UCLA Medical Center. A day later a rep for Mitchell said that she was “awake and in good spirits.” TMZ reports that Mitchell has remained in the ICU since the end of March and is now “unable to respond to anyone.”

TMZ’s report also claims that Leslie Morris, Mitchell’s close friend, has filed legal documents to obtain conservatorship over the musician.

Be well, Joni. :’(

UPDATE 7:35 pm: Representatives for Joni Mitchell say that the singer-songwriter is not, in fact, in a coma. Via Mitchell’s website:

Contrary to rumors circulating on the Internet today, Joni is not in a coma. Joni is still in the hospital - but she comprehends, she’s alert, and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected. The document obtained by a certain media outlet simply gives her longtime friend Leslie Morris the authority - in the absence of 24-hour doctor care - to make care decisions for Joni once she leaves the hospital. As we all know, Joni is a strong-willed woman and is nowhere near giving up the fight. Please continue to keep Joni in your thoughts. You may add your well wishes for her at the websiteWeLoveYouJoni.com

Image via AP. Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.

This morning I asked a Baltimore cop about the scene that unfolded at Mondawmin Mall yesterday afternoon, where a group of kids from the neighboring Frederick Douglass High School were met by a line of police officers in full riot gear as soon as they crossed the street.

One officer I spoke with had worked a grueling shift that lasted for over 12 hours and, though he had been sent all over the city, he did not know that the cops sent to Mondawmin had been part of the first violent interaction of the day. The riot squad had arrived at the mall as a preventative measure after seeing a local, teenage-run social media meme—hashtagged #Purge after the movies where a criminal state reigns supreme, and attached to a note to meet at Mondawmin at 3 p.m.—spread through high schools. The violence first escalated when the kids threw rocks at the police … and when the police threw them back. At the time, he was on duty, and later met some of those same teens from Mondawmin in a different part of the city as his peers donned that same riot gear. Another cop I spoke with grudgingly conceded that perhaps the protesters and vandals, two distinctly separate groups whose identities were hard to distinguish from each other based on their both traveling in groups made up primarily of young people, were treated with the same level of wariness. Surprisingly, over the course of the afternoon and early evening, neither cop I spoke to was given real-time updates or a briefing of how the violence began. Presumably, their co-workers weren’t either.

Last night’s protests were meant to be in remembrance of Freddie Gray, the man who died after suffering from spinal injuries inflicted upon him by police when he was arrested for running away from a cop on April 12th. He reportedly ran after an officer “made eye contact” with him. Three police officers on bikes chased him and eventually caught him, and arrested him, and ruptured his spine, and waited 45-minutes before getting him medical care. The reason that the group of high-schoolers at Mondawmin gathered and ran was the same reason Freddie Gray ran: In Baltimore, the looming, overbearing presence of police around young black males has a history of ending badly.

I asked one of the officers I spoke with if what happened yesterday was possibly instigated by the mere presence of the police at Mondawmin Mall:

[The police department] follows people on social media. They have fake Twitter accounts and fake Instagram accounts, they know to watch certain trends, so they saw that and it’s heated. They are going to make sure that’s watched.

Another police officer, on why yesterday’s protest escalated:

I blame the department and let me tell you why. They praise rookie officers. They’ll go around making a 100 arrests a month, and they’ll praise them. These rookie officers will do anything to get an arrest because they want more praise, you know what I’m saying? This is the result of it. They arrested Gray for some bullshit. That arrest was the weakest thing I’ve seen in my life. They do things like that and then what we see happening now happens. They can say anything to anyone to lock them up because they want an arrest. I don’t think they hurt him or messed him up, that’s what I truly think, but I do think they should have called a medic.

Officer A:

You see a man with a clip on his belt and you have no idea what it is. Half of West Baltimore is carrying a pocket knife, you’d be stupid to run after someone knowing that. That doesn’t seem like something someone who has been around would do. I don’t know about Freddie Gray, though, I wasn’t there. Yesterday wasn’t about Freddie Gray; the looting and violence and fires and people robbing stores downtown wasn’t about Freddie Gray; that was about the feeling that cops are the bad guys. We are not the bad guys, we are out here protecting the community. That’s what’s so upsetting, that we are out here trying to work with the community and there’s a lack of trust between both sides. I understand it, but I need to make sure it’s clear that we’re trying to keep peace.

Officer B:

This is our city too, that’s the thing. We grew up here, our friends live here, our kids go to school here. I feel so badly for everyone who has been caught up in this just living their lives, just being in the place where they live and work. I was working all day and the first time I had the chance to check on anyone, you saw people you know crying, people sending messages and group-texts looking for their kids, stores you go to being robbed clean. Police or not, this hard to watch no matter what, even after being in it and then you see it from a different perspective when you go home. It’s so sad.

Both officers said that things look relatively calm at the moment, with volunteer cleanup crews dominating the area where car fires and looting took over North Avenue last night. That said, they have been told to stay prepped if more looting or violence follows tonight’s community-organized protest.

Photo via AP Images.

A San Francisco man got into what he assumed was the Uber car he had ordered early Saturday morning, but he didn’t exactly get the ride he expected. After exhibiting some seriously suspect behavior, the driver sped past the man’s destination, then chased and robbed him when he tried to get out.

The victim told police he got into a black Town Car at around 1 a.m. after hailing an Uber, and his driver offered to take him someplace he could buy drugs and meet prostitutes, according to KRON 4. The passenger declined—he just wanted to get home to South Beach.

But a block from his home, things got weird again. The driver picked up “a woman in a dress, described as between 25 and 30 years old,” and took off without letting his original passenger out.

At this point, the man bailed from the car and tried to run home, but the driver chased him down, kicking him and taking his phone and debit card. The victim was treated at a hospital for a dislocated knee, and police are tracking debit card purchases in an attempt to find the suspect.

Uber might not be much help. Although the passenger believes the driver worked for Uber, the company won’t confirm it. They’re working with police to figure out if he may have “pirating rides,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“This man called an Uber, it’s not fair to say he got into one,” a spokesperson told Reuters.

Although Uber vets its drivers, the company’s background checks were criticized last year by San Francisco and Los Angeles district attorneys as not thorough enough. After a handful of incidents involving alleged driver attacks on passengers, Uber promised in December to improve its driver screening.

[h/t SFist, Photo: Uber/YouTube]

Erin Burnett really tried, bless her heart, to imagine a reason why it might be inappropriate to refer to protesting black Baltimore teenagers as thugs.

The CNN host was interviewing Baltimore city councilman Carl Stokes when she defended Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s categorization of the teens as criminals and thugs—asking Stokes why it wasn’t “the right word?”

Well for one thing they’re kids, Stokes points out.

“But how does that justify what they did? I mean that’s a sense of right and wrong. They know it’s wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old person’s home, I mean, come on,” Burnett clarifies, uncomprehending.

“Come on? So calling them thugs? Just call them niggers. Just call them niggers,” Stokes replies. “No. We don’t have to call them by names such as that. We don’t have to do that.”

Burnett, to be fair, later promises she “would hope that [she] would call [her] son a thug if he did such a thing.”

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

A group of Rikers Island prisoners who claim they were poisoned by their guards have some significant evidence, their lawyers say: the meatloaf they were served reportedly tested positive for Brodifacoum—commonly known as rat poison.

The evidence is less-than-ironclad (the meatloaf samples were provided by the prisoners and the prison hospital never tested the prisoners’ blood or urine) but lawyers say the guards may have been motivated by the attempted rape of a guard the week before. Via the New York Post:

The 19 prisoners allege​ in a Brooklyn federal lawsuit​ that they fell violently ill after being served meals in their housing unit on March 3 during a three-day lockdown stemming from the attempted sex attack, court papers state.

“Some of the inmates kept the food as evidence,” their lawyer, Joann Squillace, told The Post Monday. “I personally saw what looked like blue pellets — especially in the meatloaf.”

The attorney said medical staff told the prisoners they ate rat poison.

Squillace said that a prisoner is usually assigned to assist Rikers staff in preparing and distributing meals — but that inmate claims he was suspiciously barred from taking part in the process that day.

The prisoners filed suit Monday seeking an emergency court order; a hearing is reportedly scheduled for Thursday.

[image via AP]

Contact the author of this post at gabrielle@gawker.com

The Apple Watch is an expensive way of saying, “Hey, you know what I need more of? Computers. Near or around my person. At all times.” It’s a dumb luxury item, and the only reason you feel even the slightest hint of desire for it is because Apple is good at marketing. Unfortunately, wearing one immediately places you on the Do Not Fuck list.

You see, our friends at Gawker recently asked you to take a pledge that you will not have sex with anyone who wears an Apple Watch. It’s not a hard choice—just the right one. But guess what? A whole slew of famous people bought Apple Watches anyway, thereby rendering themselves celibate in the eyes of everyone but each other.

Yes, I know. It will be hard to turn down Beyoncé when she one day comes knocking on your door, super down to screw. But wait! A beeping noise causes you to glance at her wrist. She swiftly covers her custom gold watch with one hand, but too late: You shut the door in her face. Chances are she is kinda uninteresting and has specific weird-but-boring instructions in bed anyway.

The fact is, the Apple Watch is a sort of Wite-Out for fuckability. The following is a list of oblivious public figures who have nonetheless rendered themselves unfuckable. Knowledge is power.

Beyoncé

Don’t get me started on the feather-headdress thing, either. [Editor’s note: Seriously, don’t.]

Kid Cudi

pic.twitter.com/47gK3fwMpQ

April 27, 2015

Yesterday on Twitter, I said no one should sleep with Kid Cudi now that he has an Apple Watch, so he replied with a “who are you?” which was a fair point and a good burn. But then he blocked me (and deleted it), which also makes me think he’s a sensitive lil baby, and only proves the point further.

Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour has sex exactly once a year, and it is all business anyway.

Karl Lagerfeld

Ditto Karl on the one-time-a-year thing.

Rupert Murdoch

Paging @JoannaStern - @rupertmurdoch finally got his own #AppleWatch today. Sorry about stealing yours pic.twitter.com/a1bGKZEkhW

April 24, 2015

This one is hard, as Rupert Murdoch maintains an ideal and deeply sexual look.

Drake

I’m guessing Aubrey got a watch for his mom, too.

Kyle Lowry

There is something in the water in Toronto. Lots of free time to learn how to use it, though!

Jose Bautista

Toronto!

J.J. Abrams

Reasonable, given that he presumably identifies as being sexually attracted to machines.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry’s “I’m a cute dork and I only eat cupcakes, teehee” schtick has consequences.

Neil Patrick Harris

You’re truly dodging a bullet by theoretically refusing NPH.

Tom Brady

So you’re in the bathroom of da club, and you realize Tom Brady is totally there as well, and you think, “Jeez, what a hunk! Hard to resist the advances of four-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady!” And then you come out of the bathroom, and you notice the watch, and you leave da club immediately.

Pharrell

Con: You’d be forgoing access to his large collection of hats. Pro: You’d be avoiding the stigma of his large collection of hats. Turn your chair back around.

Frank Ocean

This photo was published on Tumblr. Come on, man. You need to spend some time outside.

We will continue to update this list.

Top image via Getty; Images of Torontonians and Pharrell via Getty as well.

My first indication that things would be different at Baltimore’s North and Pennsylvania Avenues this evening came when I met Crystal Smith and Jessica Mullen. “Hey!” Crystal called to me, wearing a Baltimore Ravens t-shirt, standing three blocks away from a CVS that was burned and looted just last night (and again today). “Wanna help us move the camel?”

It’s possible—likely, even—that violence was happening elsewhere in Baltimore as I approached the epicenter of last night’s riot, but it definitely wasn’t happening here.

Crystal and Jessica, both native Baltimoreans, had a five-foot-long statue of a camel strapped to the roof of their Mitsubishi. The hulking plastic animal was missing all of its legs, but it was still unwieldy; they weren’t sure how to get it to the intersection of North and Pennsylvania Avenues. “We want to translate the message of the people who were burning and looting last night in a peaceful way,” Crystal told me. It was unclear to me how the camel was going to accomplish that lofty and complex goal, but Crystal had no doubts about its power. “My neighbors put it out on the curb to throw away, and I’ve had it in my house for about a week and a half,” she said. “I knew it had a purpose.”

Shortly thereafter, a convoy of cars turned the corner from North Avenue onto Druid Hill, their drivers flashing peace signs from the windows. “Stop the riots!” one man yelled as he drove by. “We’re here for peace!” Two blocks further west, under an awning that last night was used to shelter a reporter who had been jumped and robbed by a rioter, someone had set up an impromptu car wash.

And a block beyond that was Pennsylvania and North, where two police cars burned 24 hours ago. Tonight, people were partying. At around 6:30 p.m., when a woman walking away from the intersection told me that there was “New Orleans-style” music being played, I didn’t expect a full-fledged live brass band. But there they were, playing in the middle of the street.

Amid a crowd of hundreds of peaceful and jubilant people, I spotted a young woman in front of the CVS holding a sign that read: “To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage,” a modified James Baldwin quote. “They asked for peace, they got it,” she told me. “It’s like a block party!” added one of her companions.

It was the most heavily secured block party I’ve ever seen. Police helicopters buzzed overhead while lines of tactical gear-clad cops stood on both North and Pennsylvania Avenues. Two cops confirmed that the assembly had been nonviolent all day. “All day, it’s been peaceful,” one said. “Other than a couple of little incidents, it’s been peaceful.”

Standing in front of the line of riot cops was a line of middle-aged men. They were there, one man said, to provide a buffer between the police and the congregated citizens. “If there was no buffer, the situation could escalate like it did yesterday,” one man said. “Yesterday was a day for the community’s voice to be heard,” he added when I remarked on the astounding difference between last night and tonight. “Today, it’s being heard in a different way.”

Standing in front of those middle-aged men was writer and television personality Touré.

At 6:55 p.m., a column hundreds of people long began marching north on Pennsylvania. They chanted a call-and-response: “We want peace!/I love Baltimore!”

The crowd marched north on Pennsylvania Avenue, turned right on Fulton Avenue, and right again on Druid Hill Avenue, ending at the Cloverdale basketball courts, where a nonviolent gathering of young people had been taking place all afternoon. Kids were skateboarding and playing basketball, and an MC with a microphone urged the drivers of an orange Pontiac and a white Audi to move their double parked cars lest they be towed. “I want the helicopters to hear us,” urged another man over the speakers before leading the crowd in the “We want peace” chant. “I want everyone we think we hate to hear us. I want everyone we think hates us to hear us. I want everyone we love to hear us.”

A third man—or maybe the first guy again, I could only hear them over the speakers—took the mic. “I love my white brothers. I love my black brothers. This was never about dividing the community. This was a message to the government, the biggest gang in the world.”

Back at North and Penn, a drumline was playing, accompanied by dancers. A handful of kids had climbed on top of the Metro station at the intersection, and a voice from a police helicopter ordered them to get down. They did.

Thank god someone was around tonight monitoring the politesse of the Baltimore protesters. That hero? Miss Manners herself, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.

Kelly, broadcasting from the studio, had strong words for the protesters, who had the nerve to yell things like, “Are we being violent?” and “We’re asking you to leave our neighborhood” at reporter Leland Vittert.

I know what you’re thinking—seems like an opportune time for a scolding! Social cop Megyn Kelly agrees.

“This is ridiculous. This is how folks want to be heard? They want to shout down the reporter? They want to endanger him? They want to get in his face? Really?” Kelly says, unironically pointing out that Vittert has plenty of security to protect him from the story.

“This is the way folks are dealing with their anger. Shouting down a reporter trying to do his job, trying to bring their message out!”

Weird, right?

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Law enforcement officers fired tear gas canisters and arrested protesters as they began clearing the streets for the first night of Baltimore’s mandatory curfew.

On Monday, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake set a citywide curfew between 10 pm and 5 am, but by 10:50 some protesters still remained in the streets as officers in tactical gear carrying shields continued advancing forward.

Officers also fired rubber bullets at protesters who refused to disperse, CNN reports. But overall the scene appeared quiet, although at least one arrest was quickly carried out in front of CNN cameras.

Credentialed press, who apparently make up the majority of the people left on the street, are exempt from the curfew.

With Baltimore curfew going into effect, police making arrests after group started attacking officers w/ rocks & bricks.

April 29, 2015

Update 4/29/15 12:10 am: Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts called the curfew a success during an 11:45 pm press conference, though news cameras still show crowds of people—reporters? protesters?—milling about in the street.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Baltimore police, enforcing the mandatory curfew that went into effect Tuesday night, are dizzyingly efficient.

Like this arrest, caught on CNN cameras: now you see the protester, now you don’t. Where did he go? No comment.

Update 11:22 pm: According to a Twitter user, the man may have been student activist Joseph Kent, who also participated in the Ferguson protests.

Police just arrested Joesph Kent, student of Morgan State University. Swat truck came up on him, drove by then disappeared. Wow. #Baltimore

April 29, 2015

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

A California teen accused of fatally stabbing a 9-year-old boy confessed to the crime on Monday, the Contra Costa Times reports, telling the paper he wanted to experience the act of killing before the impending end of the world.

“I wanted to see what it was like to take a life before someone tried to take mine,” 18-year-old William Shultz reportedly told the paper.

According to police, Shultz was a friend of the victim’s family and was staying at the third grader’s home at the time of the murder. From CBS News:

He told the paper that his family had been concerned about his odd behavior and mental health over the last month and that he was briefly hospitalized Saturday in a county facility. He said a doctor discharged him and sent him in a cab to his mother’s home where a fight between he and his mother ensued. He says that’s why he went to spend the night at the victim’s home. Schultz and the victim’s older brother have been friends since 6th grade.

Sheriff’s deputies were called to the victim’s house at about 10 a.m. Sunday but the boy’s family had whisked him to the hospital before authorities arrived. The boy was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Shultz was arrested later that day after seeking treatment for his own injuries at a nearby hospital. On Tuesday, prosecutors filed first degree murder charges against Shultz.

“This wasn’t a random act,” Sheriff’s Lt. Ken Westermann told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This wasn’t some sort of stranger that came into the home and murdered a child. This was a family friend.”

[Image via Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff]

In 1973, Don’t Look Now got released, and so, it was rumored, did Donald Sutherland. So are the new filmmakers also going to remake the sex scene so realistic there’s still debate, 40 years later, over whether or not it involved actual penetration?

The Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie coupling has been the subject of dispute for years—Sutherland has long denied the rumors and a producer reportedly corroborates his account. Makes sense. Actors act. But then there’s former Variety editor Peter Bart, then a Paramount executive, who maintains that he witnessed “[Sutherland’s] dick...moving in and out of her” first-hand.

The relevant passage, via the Hollywood Reporter:

I got my hands on a galley copy of the former Variety editor’s forthcoming book, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex). In the book, Bart tells a funny, profane, revealing anecdote about visiting the Venice set on that “auspicious day.” At the time, Bart was a Paramount executive and, according to the new book, Roeg told him as he arrived on set, “Good day to come by.”

While he was watching the filming, Bart claims his mind drifted off for a few moments to other logistics of his trip before suddenly focusing back on the actors, who were completely naked. And — apologies for the adult language, I’m quoting from the book — he writes, “It was clear to me they were no longer simply acting: they were fucking on camera.”

According to Bart, he then had the following whispered exchange with Roeg:

Bart: Nic. Don’t they expect you to say “cut?”

Roeg: I just want to be sure I have the coverage.

Bart: His dick is moving in and out of her. That’s beyond coverage.

So there you have it. It was the Seventies.

But the anecdote actually carries over to a few months later, when Bart says he got a surprise visit at his Beverly Hills office from Warren Beatty, who was either dating Christie or had just broken up with her at the time. Beatty apparently had seen Roeg’s cut of the movie and angrily demanded that the scene be re-edited because it was graphic enough that you could see Christie’s, uh, julie. Bart demurred, saying that the censors would never let it through.

Beatty wasn’t appeased and insisted: “I want to cut the movie with you, pussy hair by pussy hair...”

Now a production company called StudioCanal is remaking the movie, which could be cool, but then again, it could suck—hard to tell.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department agreed to a $725,000 settlement with the Justice Department, the result of a two-year investigation that found systematic civil rights abuses against minorities living in Antelope Valley, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

Under the agreement, the Sheriff’s Department admits to no wrong-doing, but will comply with a series of recommended reforms, pay $25,000 in penalties and give $700,000 to minority victims of police harassment—substantially less than the $12 million the government originally demanded.

According to the Justice Department, deputies repeatedly intimidated African Americans living in subsidized housing with surprise inspections by as many as nine armed officers, sometimes with their guns drawn, violating the Fair Housing Act. From the Associated Press:

In at least one case, a deputy conducting a housing compliance check apparently helped fuel hatred by sending photographs of luxury vehicles in a home’s garage to the person who set up an “I Hate Section 8” page on Facebook.

The family’s home was vandalized with a racist message scrawled on the garage door and urine was thrown on their son by someone who called him a racial slur.

The family moved back to inner city Los Angeles to escape further harassment.

Additionally, the investigation found that Sheriff’s deputies “engaged in a pattern or practice of stops, searches, and seizures and excessive force” that violated the constitutional rights of African Americans and Latinos living in the area.

“This settlement is not an indictment of the men and women in uniform assigned to the Antelope Valley,” L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich told The L.A. Times in a statement today, “but rather a recognition that improvement was needed which presented an opportunity to make the Antelope Valley a better place to live and work.”

[Image via AP Images]

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is making some bold moves to consolidate his power, the New York Times reports: one prince got the royal bump, another prince just got bumped out, and the first member of a new generation is priming to take over.

After appointing his half-brother to the post in January, Salman turned around and removed Muqrin bin Abdulaziz as Crown Prince Wednesday. In the meantime, the king is reportedly installing his 55-year-old nephew—the interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef—as his new successor.

Via the Times:

He also named his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as deputy crown prince and relieved the long-serving foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who has shaped the kingdom’s foreign policy for nearly four decades.

(Mohammed is pictured above—chatting? royal scheming? asking if he remembered to DVR the Good Wife?—with his father in 2012)

Despite the appointments, however, getting his kid in line for the throne isn’t a definite. The crown has passed between the sons of the late King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud since the kingdom was founded, and confirming an heir is a complicated procedure involving a 35-person committee vote.

Still, the strong opening move pulls Salman’s son up out of a pool of hundreds of Abdul-Aziz’s grandkids. And you know what, I’ve seen this movie literally hundreds of times—watch your back for real, Prince Mohammed!!!!

[image via AP]

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.