The NYPD has released surveillance footage of an NYPD officer opening fire on man reportedly armed with a hammer
The suspect, identified as David Baril, 30, was rushed to Bellevue hospital, where he’s reportedly in critical condition.
Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.
As you know—truly, as you’ve always known—Kristin Cavallari is pregnant. She announced the news on the Kristin Cavallari app for iPhone on Monday
What do the gals from Laguna Beach and The Hills have to say?
From old pal Jessica “Jess’ca” Smith to enduring frenemy Lauren Conrad, each has responded on Twitter in her own way.
New recipe today! Cauliflower-crust dairy-free pizza, this is a good one guys. #TheAlternative #LoCooks http://t.co/w6UGPOXZpG
May 13, 2015
I haven't had only one child in diapers in 3 years.... This is glorious!!
May 11, 2015
Thanks for the support!!! https://t.co/EQLIFO5zr8
May 12, 2015
1 of my favorite people in the world wrote a book & it's out TODAY! Pick up #ATaleOfTwoBesties http://t.co/ZIu1xFPcmB pic.twitter.com/9dskwucGSv
May 12, 2015
Lots happenin today! A new blog post is up (link in profile), this newborn session is featured on… https://t.co/1dfriujDFO
May 13, 2015
Congrats @RondaRousey ! 👏🏽 You look amazing on the cover of #SportsIllustrated ! Making history! 💪🏻 https://t.co/JfXs2NdOMb
May 12, 2015
Congrats!
Stacie the Bartender (@staciehall) has yet to weigh in—we will update this post if and when she does.
This has been 500 Days of Kristin.
[Photo via Getty]
I was recently voted one of the 15 most notorious party crashers in the world, a title I don’t take lightly. I am proud to report that I came in at No. 4, beating Tareq and Michaele Salahi (#15), Queen Elizabeth (#14) and Bill Murray (#6). Lady Gaga and Serena Williams were handed honorable mentions, but did not actually make the esteemed list. Better luck next time, ladies!
My party crashing habit began in my teens. It was my hobby; and I might I add, not an easy one when you live in Georgia. The state is not exactly the celebrity capital of the world. At seventeen, I sneaked into an audition to land my first movie role, and I asked Burt Reynolds to my prom (he didn’t say yes, but it was pretty cool to talk to him on the phone). A year later, my prince charming—pop idol and sex symbol, Tom Jones—became my first boyfriend. I had literally turned into Cinderella, and I was not even 19!
My gate-crashing adventures multiplied accordingly when I moved to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles. On multiple occasions, I finagled my way into the Grammys, Emmys, Oscars and virtually every elite award show in Hollywood. There were fringe benefits associated with “crashing.” I got to ask highly successful people penetrating questions, such as “What is the key to success?” Famous men asked me on dates, famous women asked me to lunch, and VIPs offered me intriguing jobs.
I suppose I secretly hoped some of their fairy dust would rub off on me. All in all, I made some downright cool connections. My college and high school friends were hanging out at bars or at the bowling alley, while I lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous… even though I was actually poor and obscure.
This brings me to the Secret Service. I made my way past them four times, although I want to stress that I was always checked for weapons. I could not have sneaked past this stoic team of defenders with a knife or a gun. So, in my estimation, they did their job and should not be faulted.
My first two Secret Service adventures happened in the 1980s and involved gaining access to President Reagan. The first situation involved a great deal of tears. I literally cried my way past the Secret Service and ended up in a VIP area chatting with the president, mostly about the weather. I had not intentionally gate-crashed. I was feeling claustrophobic because the main party room was intolerably crowded. I felt like I was trapped in a gumball machine, and the only escape lay beyond red velvet ropes in a sparsely-filled VIP section. Secret Service agents recognized a damsel in distress, took pity on me and voluntarily opened the ropes.
My second Secret Service gate-crash was not so different from the impressive technique used by the notorious Salahis when they gained access to President Obama’s state dinner. I wanted to snag an interview and photo with Reagan, but when I called the White House to make the request, a receptionist told me to buzz off. Actually, those weren’t her exact words. She explained that Reagan was on a three-week hiatus from reporters, and then she blasted me, “Everyone in the country can’t get their picture taken with the president!” But I was not deterred by that minor setback.
I shifted into perseverance mode and headed to the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, where I knew the president’s staff was staying. Two men were setting up cameras outside the hotel lobby, and I correctly assumed they were with the White House. I also guessed they would be attending Walter Annenberg’s annual New Year’s Eve party in Palm Springs with none other than the Gipper himself.
I introduced myself to these fine gents and boldly asked, “Do either of you happen to need a date for New Year ’s Eve?”
One of the men happened to be the White House chief photographer. He laughed and said, “Sure. I could use a date. But, we’re going to a party in Palm Springs. Do you want to drive all the way down there?”
“No problem,” I shot back, figuring I had just landed an invitation to the premier social event of the year. “Will the president be there?”
“Of course,” he said, and took my social security number for a background check.
I arrived in Palm Springs for the special occasion, but my name was not on the guest list. My date whispered with Secret Service agents, and ten minutes later, I was in. President Reagan—obviously unaware of the “reporter hiatus”—answered my laundry list of questions. I asked him if he was ever nervous about meeting any particular person, and he said he anticipated meeting the pope. We also talked about the holidays.
The third Secret Service gate-crash occurred at a John Kerry fundraiser in 2004. The Senator was a candidate for president, and the $25,000 per person entry fee was slightly beyond my $3 price point. Party crashing was the only ticket I could afford. After being checked for weapons, I jumped into the colorful collage of party dresses worn by bona fide guests and finagled myself past the door. A Secret Service agent realized I had dodged him and shouted, “Wait. I didn’t see your ticket. Come back here.” I pretended I was deaf.
I made my way into a celebrity-filled room where I hobnobbed with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, John Kerry, Neil Diamond, Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, Ben Stiller, and Robert De Niro, among others.
My final Secret Service coup happened at George Clooney’s Los Angeles estate in 2012. It was a fundraiser for President Obama and the entry fee was slightly more than the equity in my home. This “party crash” was actually a “car crash,” but not in the usual sense. Secret Service and police officers had blocked the street which led to George’s estate in order to keeps peasants like me away. But they erred when they temporarily removed a barricade in the road. I seized the opportunity for rebelliousness, and possibly jail time. I barreled up the hill in my Nissan, but was subsequently flagged down.
“Ma’am, you must turn around and go back down the hill,” a security guard said after I slammed on the brakes and rolled down my window.
My brain shifted into creativity mode. On my passenger seat was a Rite Aid bag filled with recently purchased pony tail holders.
“I have an emergency pharmaceutical delivery for (I pretended to read a small piece of paper)… Mr. G. Clooney.”
The man seemed confused and scanned the area for advice. I tried to act confident. I hoped he would not look inside my sack because I don’t think there is such thing as an “emergency scrunchie.”
He paused for a few seconds, and then said, “Okay. I guess you can go up.”
The street around George’s house was jammed with catering trucks and service vehicles, so I parked in the only spot available: the actor’s driveway. I entered the event. Barbra Streisand walked past me, and I drummed up conversations with Jack Black, Billy Crystal, and Rob Reiner.
Gate-crashing is a form of life-crashing. It’s the perfect hobby for folks who want to live in the bold zone. The bold zone is that area just beyond the comfort zone where fierceness resides. It requires showing up, going at life with gusto and becoming a fearless and relentless force of nature.
A person can enter the bold zone without becoming a party crasher. But, hey, why miss all the fun?
Charlotte Laws is the author of the new memoir, Rebel in High Heels. She has been an actress, politician, weekly NBC commentator and private investigator. You can follow her on Twitter @CharlotteLaws
All photos via Charlotte Laws
Sheldon Smith took $4,000 from Janice Neal, a “friend” he met on Christian Mingle, and then refused to pay her back. Naturally, Neal brought him on Judge Judy to sue him for the money she was rightfully owed.
During the case, Judy pointed out that Smith was acting particularly egregiously because, “You met her on a Christian Mingle dating site. Not Match.com or Harmony.com [sic], but on a site where it is suggested that there is a Christian ethic. People who are coming on that site, they go on that site to meet other people who I assume share similar values to them, similar moral values to them. So now you’re working, your son—who she doesn’t know—is working out his problems, you get a pension, and you look perfectly able-bodied to me. And she’s no longer your friend. So why should she be out $4,000?”
Imagine if everyone who advertised himself as a Christian actually acted like one. Imagine!
Neal ended up winning the case.
America is the first power in history motivated by a desire to expand freedom rather than its own territory.
May 13, 2015
The conservative estimate of the US Native American population before the arrival of European settlers was over 12 million. Today, that number has been reduced by 95 percent.
Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.
Welcome to Midweek Madness, where we deal with the summer heat by drinking a ton of iced coffee but then we have to pull over in the middle of nowhere to use the bathroom so we knock on the door of the nearest home and realize that we’re at Bucklebury Manor and they let us use their bathroom but we have to walk through a tense argument between Queen Elizabeth II and Carole Middleton and it’s super awkward so we just say, “Thank you!” and run out the door. This week, Kris Jenner is either fired, in rehab, going through a mid-life crisis, or all three; Tom wants custody of Suri; Kim is pregnant again, and Queen Elizabeth II is the angriest great granny in all of the United Kingdom.
Pour another iced coffee because it’s time to get started.
KARDASHIANS FIRE KRIS: WHY EVERYONE TURNED AGAINST HER
Mom-ager no more! After being panned for “the handling of ex Bruce Jenner’s transition to a woman, outed as a liar and letting some business deals seemingly slip through the family’s fingers,” Kris Jenner has been FIRED, and Khloe was given the honors of doing the dirty work. “It wasn’t pretty. Kris lost it and called Khloe spoiled and ungrateful.” But it wasn’t just the Kardashians who wanted her gone. “Bigwigs” at E! were furious that Kris kept Bruce’s transition a secret so long. Meanwhile, I’m shocked that she was able to keep it a secret at all. If this firing actually goes through (E! is denying that it happened), I’m dreading the Diane Sawyer interview where she reveals she’s actually Melisandre and that she plans on destroying us all in the name of Stannis Baratheon. Or whatever she’s up to on that show. I usually play Candy Crush while it’s on.
DO ROSES MEAN NOTHING?! Whitney Bischoff, the w(h)inner of last season’s The Bachelor, DUMPED Chris Soules, the bachelor on last season’s The Bachelor. She was sick and tired of Chris getting “close” to Witney Carson, his partner on Dancing With the Stars (w(h)ere he’s one of the “stars” somehow). Witney has been photographed holding hands w(h)ith Chris, and Whitney doesn’t “understand w(h)y they would spend so much time together.” Their breakup, reports a source, could be announced as early as next w(h)eek. But, uh-oh, I just realized I can no longer tell the two W(h)itneys apart. W(h)ill Whitney break up with Chris or w(h)ill Witney break up with Chris???
Miley is done partying and hooking up with different people every night. She wants to marry her ex, Chris Hemsworth’s Little Brother, and that’s that. Now that her fling with Patrick Schwarzenegger is over (Maria Shriver has been exhaling dramatically in Hyannis Port ever since), she can finally return to her first love. Her favorite love. Her only love: Chris Hemsworth’s Little Brother. Sources say “she went from telling friends she wanted to take it slow with [Chris Hemsworth’s Little Brother] to telling them she’s planning a wedding [with Chris Hemsworth’s Little Brother],” despite the fact that he called of his engagement with her in 2013. But not all of the sources can agree. One says “[Chris Hemsworth’s Little Brother] is happy Miley is such a free spirit, but if she thinks he’ll marry her, she’s delusional.”
Grade: D+ (The Kardashians fire you.)
ROYAL BABY BATTLE!
The Middletons are at war with The Queen! Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana met her maternal grandmother, Carole Middleton, before her paternal great grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and the Queen is hopping mad (though she probably shouldn’t be doing any hopping, given her age). Sources say “things are tense” between the two families and that Kate has been “mortified” by the Queen’s behavior around the Middletons. “Royal insiders say Queen Elizabeth II has long been frustrated by the Middletons’ lack of royal deference when it comes to their grandchildren, but Carole has made it clear that her first priority is to protect her daughter rather than please the Queen.” Watch out Carole! I’m worried for the kinds of world wars—or at least Lifetime movies—that this feud could inspire.
Maybe Kris Jenner hasn’t been fired! Maybe she’s just going to rehab. Sources tell Star that Kris is checking in to rehab in order to “change her own image from self-absorbed party mama to woman of substance.” Maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t, but it’ll certainly make for a good KUWTK spinoff if it happens. Imagine it: Kris, Interrupted—E!’s modern-day, serialized docu-series following a woman choosing to go to rehab for the sole purpose of rehabilitating her image. If that doesn’t deserve an E! series, I don’t know what does.
Amal Clooney is too skinny. OK. The thing about Amal and George is that, while they’re in the top tier of the A-list, they’re also two of the most boring people in any tabloid? Every single week? That’s arguably a good thing for them, but it’s a terrible thing for us, consumers of Hollywood gossip. I don’t read these magazines to be bored by the truth, I read them to be entertained by the fabrications. And if you can’t think of better gossip than “AMAL CLOONEY IS WORKING SO HARD THAT SHE’S LOSING WEIGHT” you need to go back into your pool of insiders and find a source who’ll tell you something like, I don’t know, AMAL CLOONEY’S GUMMY WORM ADDICTION IS TEARING HER MARRIAGE APART. That’s juicy. That’s gossip.
Grade: F (You’re written up in Star for being boring.)
KATIE’S NIGHTMARE: TOM TAKES SURI
Tom Cruise hasn’t seen Suri Cruise in 600 days, but now he WANTS HER BACK and is “READY FOR A FIGHT.” Cruise’s sudden request for custody is, claims a source, “exactly what Katie Holmes has been fearing.” An insider says he’s “ready to go to court to ask for more time with Suri [and now] Katie will have to gear up for the fight of her life if she wants to keep Tom away from his daughter.” Another insider says “Tom and Katie’s battle for Suri will be the fight of the century.” Meanwhile, Chris Klein has said nothing.
Kylie is getting married! Tyga, her 25-year-old boyfriend, proposed, and she, a 17-year-old, said yes! The 17-year-old accepted “a few weeks ago” after she decided she was “ready to take her romance... to a shocking new level.” The 17-year-old and the 25-year-old will get married once the 17-year-old turns 18 in August. The 17-year-old doesn’t even care that the 25-year-old’s ex, Blac Chyna, posted texts that showed the 25-year-old “trying to reconcile with her”! “[The 17-year-old] didn’t seem to care...to her, that means it’s real. She’s a teenager in love. She sure is!” Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is not.
Another war, only this time it’s between American royalty. Yep, that’s right: the Duggars have officially begun fighting. “Fame is tearing Jessa Seewald and Jill Duggar apart,” and “it keeps getting worse.” Basically, Jessa doesn’t want to be “compared to Jill every single day,” and “resentment continues to build” every second. It all started when Jill “announced her courtship to now-husband Derick Dillard just two months after Jessa... announced her courtship to Ben Seewald.” Yep. That was definitely the beginning of something major. Sort of like when the Archduke Ferdinand announced his courtship to that bullet.
Grade: D- (Your invite to Bruce Jenner’s coming out party gets lost in the mail.)
KIM PREGNANT! SHE’S HAVING A BOY
After having sex “500 times a day” and “several rounds” of IVF treatments, Kim Kardashian-West is pregnant with a boy! An insider says, “Kim was starting to think it might never happen. She was losing hope.” But then, poof! Pregnant. North is going to have a brother. Kim is being “crazy protective,” and “doesn’t want to risk doing anything that could damage the pregnancy.” Meanwhile, Kanye is “ecstatic” as hell and can’t wait to have another little one in the family. “He can’t do enough for Kim and North [and is] smiling so much more than usual.” :)
Don’t believe anything you’ve read anywhere else, because Kris Jenner isn’t going to rehab or getting fired—she’s just going through a very classic mid-life crisis. “Discovering Bruce was living a secret life had to take its toll,” and her “recent antics” are “just the way she’s dealing with it.” See? She’s in no danger of losing her job or going to rehab. She’s just out having a good time, though all the partying is making her daughters “cringe.” Same, girls!
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux are living “separate lives.” Which is surprising, considering the fact that I thought they were one person. But no! They are two separate people, living two separate lives, and it looks like they may not get married after all. A source says, “Jen is devastated but trying to keep it together. And Justin feels like he’s always put Jen first but she hasn’t made him a priority. They’ve had some bitter fights.” That sounds bad, but at least Jen has her BFF available at all times for guidance. “The last time she spent this much time with Courteney was after her split from Brad Pitt.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: thank god for Courteney Cox.
Grade: C- (You get broken up with but Courtney Cox is in your speed dial.)
Fig. 1, Star
Fig. 2, inTouch
Fig. 3, inTouch
Fig. 4, inTouch (smh
Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.
Being tried for murder apparently didn’t dull Amanda Knox’s sense of humor. Last night in New York, the one-time accused roommate stabber belted out The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” a song about tragic death, with all the fervor of someone no longer facing life in a foreign prison.
“In your head, in your head,” Knox sings. “Zombie, zombie, zombie, hey, hey.” She probably falls asleep easily.
[via TMZ]
Waka Flocka Flame seems like a pretty relaxed guy. Running for president, hiring a professional blunt roller, endorsing cough drops
At a Scottsdale, Arizona show on Monday, Waka Flocka Flame saw two fans brawling in the crowd as he performed and promptly decided to break it up, and went into the crowd to do so. Waka Flocka forced the brawlers to hug, adding the hashtag #hugItOut to the video below.
I don’t allow any fights going down amongst my fans at my shows!! #hugItOut !!!! Life is too short!!! @turnupgodz tour with @justwhookid #Waka4Prez #vicePrezWhoo @iamfatjesus
This is a good stance. Waka 4 Prez.
Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.
This is the day that the New York Times, National Geographic, and BuzzFeed, among others, began publishing stories directly to Facebook. The instant-publishing partnership is the newest concession to, or accommodation with, Facebook’s ever-greater dominance of how people encounter and read (or watch) material.
Publications (including Gawker Media sites) already depend heavily on Facebook to promote and distribute their stories. The audience of millions lurking on the far side of the social-networking/data-mining company’s algorithms is a source of terror and anxiety, and also of greed. Facebook has made it possible for stories and videos to reach truly shocking numbers of eyeballs, and also for stories and videos not to reach those same eyeballs, for opaque and arbitrary-seeming reasons either way.
So the theory behind instant publishing is that Facebook’s new partners will become more active participants in the process. They will create special Facebook-friendly design features—”if you have an iPhone (no Android version yet),” Vindu Goel wrote in the Times, “you might see the image in the cover photo move, like the motion in one of the newspaper images in a Harry Potter movie”—and get smoother delivery. “I think that our bundle of content will get even more compelling when it loads faster,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti told the Times.
Is content more compelling when it loads faster? Let’s savor that quote again in slow motion, so as not to miss any of the words:
(On reflection, it seems likely that by “compelling” Peretti means something roughly inverse to that: The faster delivery of content makes it easier for content to simply happen to the reader, without personal compulsion or even intention.)
And but, more pertinently, instant publishing means that the content-makers who cooperate will be able to sell ads on Facebook and gather data on their Facebook readers. Facebook could almost be thought of as a thoroughly neutral publishing platform.
But Facebook is nothing of the sort, which is a point that the coverage has largely elided. Some people have wondered what fate might befall a publication’s investigative report about Facebook, now that Facebook is the publishing outlet of first resort. That’s a valid but unnecessary thought experiment: We already know that Facebook suppresses lots of material
Facebook’s “community standards” page lists 11 different categories of forbidden content, ranging from “Direct Threats” (“We remove credible threats of physical harm to individuals”) to “Nudity” (“We remove photographs of people displaying genitals or focusing in on fully exposed buttocks”). On the subject of nudity, Facebook explains that it is set up to err on the side of being over-restrictive:
In order to treat people fairly and respond to reports quickly, it is essential that we have policies in place that our global teams can apply uniformly and easily when reviewing content. As a result, our policies can sometimes be more blunt than we would like and restrict content shared for legitimate purposes. We are always working to get better at evaluating this content and enforcing our standards.
Gawker Media publications have had their Facebook accounts frozen for a wide variety of reasons. A video compiling ice-bucket-challenge mishaps
Some of Facebook’s objections can be overturned on appeal. Others reflect a genuine disagreement about editorial standards. Gawker Media sites try to avoid using Facebook to promote posts that contain nudity, because Facebook disallows a much greater range of nudity than we do. If we think of what we do on Facebook as a form of publishing, rather than as a form of promotion, then we are currently self-censoring to meet Facebook’s standards.
When Facebook is a gatekeeper for content, the model for online publishing stops being a no-standards free-for-all and becomes something more like the Big Three television networks. Mass audiences must be handled delicately, tastefully, appropriately. PG-13, at the worst.
How are Facebook’s new partners accommodating the company’s content standards, or vice versa? BuzzFeed Chief of Staff Ashley McCollum referred questions about how BuzzFeed meets Facebook standards to a spokesperson for Facebook.
That spokesperson wrote in an email: “This content is treated no differently than all other content posted to Facebook. We ask that all content posted directly to Facebook comply with our Community Standards.”
Images by Jim Cooke. Contact the author at scocca@gawker.com.
Missouri’s Speaker of the House, Republican John Diehl, is currently embroiled in a scandal after allegedly exchanging sexts with a college freshman intern who had him in her phone as “Frank Underwood ;).” The Kansas City Star has obtained and verified screenshots of their :kiss emoji: iMessage conversations, which “paint a picture of playful sexual innuendo.” That is certainly one way you could put it.
Diehl, who is married, appears to have texted the intern that he needed “a lot of time and a quiet room” so he could “have my way with you” and “leave you quivering.” The two also exchanged photos, including a bikini pic, to which Diehl responded “Damn, girl. Nice.”
But that’s as filthy as things apparently got. Most of their exchanges were fifty shades of yawn. In meetings, doing homework, working on a document. Not exactly the sort of thing most people get hard or wet for.
So we’ve taken the liberty of making them dirty enough to read, using the magic of stock photos. You’re welcome, Mr. Speaker.
After the existence of these very naughty sexts became public, Missouri Southern State University pulled all its interns from its Capitol internship program a month early, the Star reports. The school says the unprecedented move doesn’t have anything to do with any particular student.
Diehl initially agreed to talk on the record to a Star reporter about the alleged sexts, but backed out May 1.
The anonymous intern, who has hired an employment lawyer, says the messages aren’t real. “Meantime,” the Star adds, “she has told confidants that she had an ongoing relationship with Diehl.”
Update: Diehl apologized Wednesday night, but didn’t make the extent of his relationship with the intern clear:
“I take full responsibility for my actions and am truly sorry to those I let down. I apologize for the poor judgment I displayed that put me and those closest to me in this situation. I also regret that the woman has been dragged into this situation. The buck stops here. I ask for forgiveness. I will begin immediately working to restore the trust of those closest to me, and getting back to the important work that is required in the final days of session.”
[Photos: Shutterstock]
At a press conference this afternoon, NTSB spokesman Robert Sumwalt said the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed
“We feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred,” he said, according to CNN.
The train, Sumwalt said, was traveling 106 mph—in a 50 mph zone—when it crashed during a left turn. The speed limit for the area just ahead of the curve was 80 mph, according to Sumwalt.
The NTSB hasn’t yet spoken with the train’s engineer in order to give him time to “convalesce.” Sumwalt said the group hopes to interview him tomorrow. Earlier today, the engineer refused to give a statement to police.
Image via AP. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.
Remember a couple of years ago when Texas was in such a deep, seemingly-irreversible drought that experts trumpeted it as the next great megadrought, the likes of which would cause Texas to poof into a pile of dust by the end of the decade? The people currently wading through their living rooms remember.
Texas’ drought situation continues to improve week after week due to the extremely wet pattern that’s parked itself across the south-central part of the country over the past month or two. Just about everyone across the Lone Star State has seen excessive rainfall from recent storms, many of which resulted in training events, or storms bubbling up and continuously moving over the same area like train cars on railroad tracks.
The result is that some areas have seen more than 600% of their normal rainfall over the past 30 days, and precipitation will continue to fall through at least the weekend, if not longer. We’ve already seen more than a foot of rain over many locations in the past two weeks, leading to some dire flash flooding across the southern Plains.
Last weekend, numerous news stations aired live footage of two men stuck on the roof of their pickup truck when they drove through swift water and got stuck in Sanger, Texas, requiring a helicopter to bail them out. (Don’t do that
Through all of the flooding and damage, though, is a bright side: it’s actively wiping out the drought. The fact that the rain is sustained and not just a fleeting downpour means that the excess water is helping at least as much as it’s hurting, and the drought is slowly vanishing before our eyes.
The National Drought Mitigation Center keeps track of drought conditions every Tuesday, and over the past six weeks, you can see a noticeable reduction in drought conditions across Texas and Oklahoma. The May 12 update will be released tomorrow morning, and it should show even more improvement over areas that need it the most.
The results are a welcome relief compared to what we saw just a year ago, let alone what the state dealt with back in 2011, when an exceptional drought killed crops and fostered devastating wildfires that burned a combined area a little larger than the state of Connecticut.
Now, about that megadrought.
Meteorologists usually have a hard time predicting the weather more than a week or so in advance, so it’s fair to say that long-range weather forecasting is still in its infancy. The Climate Prediction Center issues general forecasts that predict trends in temperatures and precipitation for up to a year out—for instance, predicting the odds that a certain area will see temperatures above or below average—but those, too, can go awry. In late 2013, they predicted that temperatures would be above-average during the winter of 2013-14 in the south and the northeast, when in reality, temperatures were below normal for much of the country east of the Rockies thanks to the much-maligned polar vortex.
Things get even hairier when meteorologists and climatologists predict that current weather patterns will last for years, as we saw during the major drought that plagued Texas in the early teens. That megadrought quickly started to go away, then the land started to dry out again, then got better, dried out, and now we’re seeing it get better again. It’s not a sustained thump like some folks thought might happen a few years ago.
Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon was one of the leading voices who said that a megadrought would take hold and last through 2020, and as told the New York Times in October 2011:
So is it even possible to predict whether Texas will be locked into drought in 2015, let alone 2020?
Nielsen-Gammon, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, admits it’s more of an art than a science. But he sees a lot of similarities between conditions now and the worst recorded drought in Texas history, which lasted from 1950 to 1957.
Will the drought make a reappearance? Probably! It’s hard to say with any certainty how long it’ll take for a pervasive drought to return or how long it’ll last, but things tentatively look better at the moment.
Predicting long-term trends with some accuracy is possible. We could see longer and more intense droughts as the climate changes, but predicting the duration of a specific event, such as the Texas megadrought that isn’t, still has a long way to go before it approaches the accuracy meteorologists have achieved in short-range forecasting in recent decades.
Much of Texas can expect a few more inches of rain over the next week as showers and thunderstorms pop-up over areas with saturated soil. It will only take two or three inches of rain falling over the course of three hours to produce flash flooding across much of the state, with much lower three-hour totals in the most saturated areas.
[Maps by the author | Video via The Weather Channel]
You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.
Less than 24 hours after an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven and injuring 50 more, House Republicans voted to approve a funding cut to Amtrak’s budget by about a fifth.
The cuts were attacked by Democrats for its “badly misplaced priorities,” which would potentially be contributing to the country’s longstanding infrastructure problem. Steve Israel went so far as to tell Congress that “last night we failed them.” Israel continued:
It’s not just our trains. It is our bridges that are failing. It is our highways that are congested and riddled with potholes. It is our runways, our airports. … We are divesting from America in this committee.... It defies the interests of the American people.
Meanwhile, Republicans dismissed the claims that a lack of funding had any affect on the derailments and even accused Democrats of using the tragedy as an opportunity to further an agenda for... safer infrastructure, I guess. How dare they?
While the cut in funding would not affect the trains’ safety and operations budgets, that also means it wouldn’t have a chance of being increased, something it desperately needs. According to the NTSB, necessary safety systems aren’t as wide-spread as they should be.
NTSB: Amtrak has a system called Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement, however it is NOT installed in this area. System would have slowed train.
May 13, 2015
And while we don’t know what caused the accident, the fact that precautions that could have been taken weren’t is troubling in itself. The bill will still need to clear the Senate, though, where it should hopefully have a much tougher time getting through.
[h/t Politico]
Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via AP.
A woman on trial for drowning her fiancé in a bizarre kayaking incident on the Hudson River allegedly told police officers it “felt good knowing he was going to die.”
Angelika Graswald was arrested last month after her fiancé, Vincent Viafore, mysteriously disappeared during a kayaking trip, the New York Times reports. According to reports, Graswald told police the couple had been visiting an abandoned castle on Bannerman Island when Viafore simply vanished.
His body has not yet been recovered, but he is reportedly presumed dead.
Initially cops indicated she became a suspect because of “conflicting statements” she made in the aftermath of Viafore’s disappearance.
After the kayak trip, Ms. Graswald created a flurry of Facebook posts that made her seem less grieving than liberated. There were initial photos of the couple together and inspirational bits of poetry, then selfies in which she is practically beaming, a video clip of her doing a cartwheel, a racy cartoon depicting an old married couple. Less than a week after he died, she turned up at a local pub with their friends and took the stage to sing “Hotel California.”
Perhaps the strongest hint of the case the authorities are building against her was revealed in an interview Ms. Graswald gave to News 12 Westchester, hours after her arrest on April 29.
According to the news report, Ms. Graswald said that the police found her diary, in which she had written that Mr. Viafore wanted to have a sexual threesome and that she wished he were dead. She said she had written that in a momentary flash of anger and did not mean it. She also said that the police thought she had tampered with Mr. Viafore’s kayak, which has been recovered.
The executive director of the Bannerman Castle also tells the Times he found it strange the couple would be out kayaking in 46 degree weather without life vests.
Now, prosecutors say, there’s also a confession in the mix, claiming at Graswald’s bail hearing Wednesday that she told the cops “it felt good knowing he was going to die.”
Julie Mohl, an assistant district attorney, said Ms. Graswald, 35, was aware that she was the beneficiary in two life insurance policies belonging to Mr. Viafore, who was 46. Ms. Mohl said that Ms. Graswald stood to gain $250,000 and “talked about what she could do with the money” after his death.
Graswald’s lawyer says anything she might have confessed to police was coerced or misunderstood as English is not her first language.
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
Australia is NOT fucking around with its quarantine policies, Johnny Depp!!!
Apparently Depp, who has been struggling with the vagaries of daily life for some time now, smuggled the soon-to-be outback steaks in on a private jet—to the extreme displeasure of one Agriculture Minister, Barnaby Joyce.
He tells Australia’s ABC, “If he doesn’t take Boo and Pistol back we do have to euthanase them... Just because he’s Johnny Depp doesn’t make him exempt from Australian laws.”
And that is not an idle threat, Johnny Depp!!!
The ABC understands departmental officials visited the house where Depp has been staying and delivered a three-day warning notice yesterday.
The dogs were not taken.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce this morning said Depp had 50 hours to remove the dogs.
“There is a process if you want to bring animals: you get the permits, they go into quarantine and then you can have them,” he said.
“But if we start letting movie stars even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice to come into our nation, then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?
A fair question indeed. Why not?
Image via Amber Heard’s official Instagram account. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
Some mornings I look in the mirror and I think to myself, “Isn’t it amazing our president is still alive?” Because frankly, it’s a recurring miracle.
That familiar feeling stirred anew Wednesday, when a new wave of shame resignations hit the Secret Service. Turns out investigators have determined the agents who crashed their car in the middle of an active crime scene in March were definitely a few sheets
And still, our president remains alive—a daily affirmation that anything is possible.
Via the Washington Post:
Government investigators found that Marc Connolly and his colleague George Ogilvie had spent five hours at a downtown bar before returning to the White House that night. Ogilvie had paid a large tab after he, Connolly and two other colleagues stayed at the bar late into the evening after a work party, according to officials who are familiar with the findings but spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them before the public release.
Secret Service officers on duty at the White House that night told investigators they believed one or both men were under the influence based on their odd behavior, the report will say. Some officers reported that the agents smelled of alcohol.
The investigation also found that numerous high-ranking Secret Service supervisors chose not to report the incident, and that it was omitted from a daily report of significant events at the compound provided to Clancy.
On and on, I marvel. Obama hasn’t even been seriously injured once! And of course, I wonder, I ponder, I question—how can this be?—but in the end, perhaps the unknowable mechanics of life are just that. Our lot is not to know why—it is to admire that it is so.
Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
At least 45 people are reportedly confirmed dead, with dozens more missing, after a fire broke out at a rubber slipper factory that allegedly had bars on its windows preventing workers from escaping.
According to the New York Times, the fire was apparently started by workers welding near the manufacturing chemicals at the Kentex Manufacturing Corp factory in Valenzuela. Relatives of the missing say they were probably trapped by modifications made to the building.
Dionesio Candido, whose daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law and niece were among the missing, said iron grills reinforced with fencing wire covered windows on the second floor that “could prevent even cats from escaping.”
He said he was allowed by authorities to enter the gutted building, where he saw charred remains “piled on top of each other” but could not say how many.
District Fire Marshal Wilberto Rico Neil Kwan Tiu said he was among the first to reach the second floor of the gutted building after the fire and saw “numerous bodies” but could not immediately say how many.
Local media reports quoted relatives as saying their kin sent text messages saying they were on the second floor, but contact was lost shortly after.
Workers fled to the second floor where they were trapped, he said. He was unsure if there were any fire escapes there.
According to the Times, there may have been other accessible exits that were obscured by the smoke. The AP reports an additional 25 workers are currently missing.
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
According to ABC News, Brandon Bostian—the engineer driving the Amtrak train that derailed Tuesday night, killing at least seven people—says he has “no explanation” for the crash because he can’t remember it.
Bostian’s attorney is never named in the article, but he apparently contacted the network and “confirmed his identity” in some way.
Brandon Bostian, the engineer driving the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia Tuesday night, has no recollection of the crash itself and “no explanation” for what happened, his attorney told ABC News.
Bostian was “very distraught” to learn of the loss of life in the crash, the attorney said, adding Bostian only remembers driving the train to the crash area generally, then later getting tossed around, coming to, finding his bag and his cell phone, and dialing 911.
Bostian suffered a concussion and head wound that required 14 staples, as well as injuries to both of his legs in the crash, the attorney said — but Bostian told the attorney he had “no health issues to speak of” before the crash and was on no medications.
Even so, some details are becoming clear. The NTSB says the train was traveling at more than 100 mph
Bostian has reportedly been employed at Amtrak for nine years as both a conductor and an engineer.
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
In the National Transportation Safety Board’s ongoing investigation into Tuesday night’s deadly Amtrak derailment, investigators have found that a technology designed to prevent trains from traveling at dangerous speeds had not been installed on the stretch of track where Amtrak 188 derailed.
The technology, called positive train control (PTC), uses sensors installed on train tracks to automatically slow down or stop a train if one is traveling too fast. The system has been installed in other sections of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, NBC Philadelphia reports, “including stretches from Boston to New Haven, New Brunswick to Trenton, and a 30-mile stretch of track in eastern Maryland”—but not in the stretch of track where Amtrak 188 crashed, killing seven people and injuring at least 200 others.
In the days following the derailment, investigators have confirmed that the train was speeding at more than 100 MPH
“We feel that had such a system [PTC] been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred,” the NTSB’s Robert Sumwalt told reporters Wednesday. “Without it, everybody on a train is one human error away from an accident.”
Train systems have been under a federal mandate to install PTC across their tracks since 2008, when a Los Angeles Metrolink train collided with another train, leaving 25 people dead. (The train’s driver was texting.) But as the New York Times points out, implementation of PTC has been slow going, with the prospect of all train systems meeting an imposed 2015 deadline looking unlikely:
Part of the issue is that the technology is complex. Basically, positive train control means that locomotives, engineers and train dispatchers have real-time information about train speed and location, and that trains can automatically respond to sensors along the tracks.
The Association of American Railroads argued as early as 2012 that meeting the 2015 deadline would be a challenge for most of its members because of the high cost of the system and the complexity involved in installing and testing it.
“One major issue,” the Times notes, “is that each freight railroad has its own tools but needs to make sure that its technology can communicate when traveling on tracks owned and operated by others.”
Image via AP. Contact the author at aleksander@gawker.com .
