Chicago Bears defensive end Ray McDonald has been arrested by Santa Clara, Calif. police on allegations of domestic violence, according to NBC Bay Area.

Bay Area’s Damain Trujillo reported the news first. According to Trujillo, child endangerment is another one of the possible charges. The date and details of the alleged incident have yet to be made available by Santa Clara or San Jose police, the latter of which assisted with the arrest.

McDonald was arrested for domestic violence last August, but was cleared by the NFL of any wrongdoing in April. McDonald’s then-employer, the San Francisco 49ers, never disciplined the defensive end for the arrest, citing his right to “due process.” The charges were eventually dropped.

In December, McDonald was investigated as a suspect in a rape allegation, and was subsequently released. McDonald was never charged in connection to the sexual assault investigation, and he filed a defamation suit against his accuser.

The Bears signed McDonald to a one-year deal in March.

Update: More details have emerged from McDonald’s arrest. McDonald was booked on misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and child endangerment. According to Santa Clara police, McDonald assaulted his victim “while she was holding a baby.” He was arrested at the home of just-retired former 49ers teammate Justin Smith.

Here’s more, via NBC Bay Area:

Police were called to a disturbance at 3:48 a.m. at an apartment in Santa Clara, only to find that McDonald had left to go to a friend’s home in San Jose.

According to sources, McDonald was arrested at the home of Smith in the Silver Creek neighborhood of San Jose. Neighbors said they saw police cars about 6 a.m. Monday.

Another source said that he rents an apartment in Santa Clara on Carlyle Court for his ex-fiancee and baby. The source said that on Sunday night, McDonald went out with friends and wanted to return to the apartment and asked her to leave. He left to give her some space, the source said, and when he returned, the police had been called.

Update Two: The Bears released McDonald.

#Bears GM Ryan Pace on DL Ray McDonald: "He was not able to meet the standard and the decision was made to release him.”

May 25, 2015

Photo via Getty

[NBC Bay Area]

Jessa Duggar’s father-in-law says there’s nothing wrong with the way the Duggar family handled the multiple acts of molestation committed by their eldest son Josh, saying Monday that “Josh’s parents acted in a way that godly parents should.”

In a lengthy blog post, Michael Seewald defended Josh and his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, saying they should “be commended” for the way they dealt with the news that their son had molested several young girls, including at least four of his sisters. Seewald—whose daughter-in-law, Jessa, may have been one of Josh’s victims—writes:

I am not going to talk much about the criminal aspect of Josh’s actions or if the authorities acted appropriately with the knowledge of what happened. That ball rests in their court. As it stands criminal charges were not brought against Josh but I believe that Josh’s parents acted in a way that godly parents should. They did not turn a blind eye, but earnestly sought help from the church, counselors, and eventually the police. Maybe they didn’t do it in a way that pleases everyone, but they acted decisively to confront the sin, to call a penitent son back from his errors, and to seek to aid the hurting victims. In the end Josh sought forgiveness from those he wronged, repented of his sins, and came to trust Christ as his Savior. He has to the present day attested to the reality of his repentance and faith by living above reproach. In their efforts to salvage the wreckage that these transgressions brought, and bring healing to all involved, Jim Bob and Michelle are to be commended.

Jim Bob and Michelle are to be commended.

Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

An Egyptian woman and her boyfriend are facing criminal charges for disrupting morality and inciting debauchery over a tongue-in-cheek music video the couple filmed and posted online.

According to the AP, Reda el-Fouly was arrested this week after police saw her fully-clothed video girl turn.

She’s apparently been charged in an Egyptian misdemeanor court. The so-called debaucherous incitement does appear to be an equal opportunity crime, however—authorities also want to charge her boyfriend or perhaps now ex-boyfriend, Wael Elsedeki, who reportedly fled to Tunisia as soon as things got hot.

A third person, presumably the director of the doomed video, is also wanted on similar charges.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

pic.twitter.com/wea59X0CTk

May 26, 2015

Props to Kylie for keeping up with the chemtrails for us.

Yet another teen has fallen for the siren call of ISIS: A 14-year-old Austrian boy pled guilty to terrorism charges today after he was accused of planning to bomb a Vienna train station. According to Reuters, the boy was encouraged by ISIS and downloaded bomb plans to his Playstation.

The AFP reports that at the time of his arrest in October 2014, police said the boy—identified only as Mertkan G.—made “concrete enquiries about buying ingredients” for a bomb and “planned to explode the devices in public places, such as the Vienna Westbahnhof.” Prosecutors say he had contact with ISIS and planned to travel to Syria to wage jihad.

Per the AFP: “Unconfirmed press reports said that the IS had offered to pay him 25,000 euros ($27,250) if he managed to carry out the attack.”

Mertkan’s lawyer says he is “cautiously optimistic” that Mertkan understands he was targeted by propaganda, according to the BBC. Prosecutors say he’s shown no remorse. Mertkan will serve eight months at a juvenile detention center for joining a terrorist organization and planning an attack.

PHoto via AP. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Deadspin Rovell Forced To Give On-Air Apology For “Serious Error In Judgment” | Jezebel The Duggar Girls Learned to Kiss From Jim-Bob and Josh | Kotaku Earthquake Stops Tokyo Disney Ride at the Worst Possible Point | Lifehacker The Most Common Illegal Job Interview Questions You Should Watch Out For |

In Los Angeles, where the median household income is $56,000, a $500 million house is rising.

From Bloomberg:

Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative residential developer, is pouring concrete in L.A.’s Bel Air neighborhood for a compound with a 74,000-square-foot (6,900-square-meter) main residence and three smaller homes, according to city records. The project, which will take at least 20 more months to complete, will exceed 100,000 square feet, including a 5,000-square-foot master bedroom, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino,” Niami said.

“The house will have almost every amenity available in the world,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The asking price will be $500 million.”

To give you some sense of perspective, this compound has almost twice the square footage of White House, and is 100 times the size of the Brooklyn apartment that you could never afford anyhow. Upon completion, it would be the biggest house built in America in the past century, and the price tag would be the most expensive of any home in the world. The price tag (which, along with the square footage, has risen rather steeply as the house has neared completion) is aspirational; there is no guarantee that someone will pay $500 million for it. It could end up going for as little as several hundred million dollars. Who knows?

The important thing to remember is that we live in an era when a wealthy developer feels comfortable investing the money up front to build a grotesque and obscene hilltop mansion on spec, secure in the knowledge that there is so much unused wealth sloshing around the world that some rich idiot will pay a grotesque and obscene amount of money for this monstrosity purely for the sake of decadence.

Tax the rich and don’t stop taxing them until the idea of such a real estate atrocity manifesting itself in reality strikes us all as impossible.

[Pic of a very expensive driveway via Google]

I know it can be a struggle to make it through the day after tossing and turning all night, thinking about Taylor Swift, barely getting even a few minutes of sleep. “Yes, Taylor Swift has a wonderful life,” you think, yawning, so sleepy, “So many blessings. But must she work so hard to get them?”

“Must her passion”—you continue, your restless mind...refusing to rest—“demand such effort? Imagining her exhausted...it is simply too much. Taylor—oh, Taylor Swift. I am so tired,” you think, so tired.

My friend, let me bring you some peace.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw, Taylor Swift revealed her secret:

“It’s not that hard, I’m telling you now it’s really not. Sometimes I really don’t think it’s that hard at all.”

Ah—yes. Thank goodness.

Image via Getty. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

As the East Coast of the U.S. enters the period where we complain about the heat before the heat has even begun, southern India is in the midst of a heatwave so severe that 750 people have died in under five weeks.

Officials said on Tuesday that temperatures in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states of India reached between 113 and 118 degrees Fahrenheit in April, resulting in the deaths of over 550 in the Andhra Pradesh and 215 in Telangana. Officials have been advising people to remain inside and stay as hydrated as possible as the heat intensifies.

The heatwave is expected to last for another week, when the upcoming monsoon season will offer limited relief. Via the AP:

Weather officials say the sweltering temperatures are likely to continue in southern India for at least another week. Monsoon rains, expected to arrive in the southern state of Kerala in the first week of June, should bring some respite. The monsoon season runs through September as the rains gradually cover the entire country.

According to DW.de, the intense heat has forced state administration in Andhra Pradesh to open “camps designed to provide drinking water and butter milk as a measure of protection against the severe heat conditions.”

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

In a conversation on Sunday night’s episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, eldest sister Kourtney brought up her stepfather Bruce Jenner’s announcement that he is transgender and planning to transition. A totally normal topic, given that she ostensibly just learned about this in last week’s episode—except the conversation broadcast on Sunday was actually filmed last November, while Jenner’s announcement to his stepdaughters was filmed two months later, in January.

Have you ever suspected that the Kardashians might be lying to you? That Keeping Up with the Kardashians might not be representing reality 100 percent faithfully?

You’re not alone.

Every week, keen-eyed Kardashians scholar Mariah Smith uses paparazzi photos, gossip-blog coverage, the family’s own Instagram and Twitter accounts, and common sense, to investigate, and establish a detailed and accurate shooting schedule of Keeping Up With the Kardashians—laying bare the distorted timelines and manufactured plotline of America’s royal family. Welcome to Keeping Up With the Kontinuity Errors.

On last night’s episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the A-plot was the family’s yearly vacation; the B-plot was Khloe and Kylie bonding; and the C-plot was Kim’s stinginess.

Scene 2: Filmed on November 17, 2014

Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall, and Kylie all head out for a casual dinner. After Kylie explains a nightmare in which she kept waking up saying “Kourtney,” Kourtney urges the table to all think seriously about going to therapy. She says she finds it helpful, because everyone in their family is so busy that they “can’t think about what’s happening sometimes.” Kendall doesn’t have an issue with therapy, but Kylie does. Kylie feels that you shouldn’t go to therapy “unless you’re the one asking for it,” so she won’t be going.

When speaking to the camera in a confessional, Kourtney says that her mention of therapy at the restaurant is due in part to Bruce’s transition being public. Very curious, since this was filmed on November 17, 2014—five months before Bruce officially went public with his transition (on April 24, 2015), and about two months before all the girls were filmed learning Bruce was planning to transition (on January 19, 2015). The confessional in which Kourtney makes the connection between therapy and Bruce’s transition, meanwhile, was filmed April 20, 2015.

Scene 3: Filmed on February 23, 2015

At Khloe’s house, Khloe and Kim play with a pair of binoculars that belonged to their father, Robert Kardashian, Sr. Once the two are done looking at close range things with with a far range optical device, Kim sighs that she “just wants to go skiing.” Khloe doesn’t think it’s “aligned in the cards” for them to do a big family trip this year because there’s been too much craziness going on. After a quick search on her phone, Kim decides that they should all go skiing in Big Sky, Montana. Like a race of words, both Khloe and Kim boldly state that they’ve never been to Montana. Wow, short-term memory really isn’t what it used to be. This scene was filmed on February 23, 2015, two days after Kim and Khloe returned from their trip to Montana on February 21.

Scene 5: Filmed on February 18, 2015

Khloe, Kourtney, Kim, Scott, Kids and Staff all board their private jet to Montana. Kourtney debuts her baby, Reign, on KUWTK, and Kim debuts the back of North’s neck. Of course, Everybody’s Favorite Best Friend, Malika is there, and Kim’s friend Jonathan, along with Kylie, will meet them in Montana. Khloe asks Kim what the sleeping arrangements are looking like for Malika and Jonathan. Kim tells Khloe that she booked her boy Jonathan a hotel room nearby, and that Malika can either share a bed with Khloe or sleep on the couch. Khloe’s upset that Kim booked her company in a lavish hotel, but regulated Malika to a pull-out. At the end of Khloe’s day, Malika is not going on the couch, and Kim needs to figure something out quickly. This was filmed on February 18, 2015.

Scene 7: Filmed on February 18, 2015

After de-planing and caravanning to their rental, the Montana Crew pulls up to the house-pardon us, estate—that couldn’t accommodate Malika. Kimberly Noel Kardashian West, you mean to tell us that Malika couldn’t sleep in one of the five bedrooms, the “lounge by day, bunk room by night,” or the theater room? Or perhaps you could have not invited more people than you could comfortably house?

Two people who have a place to lay their heads that night, Kylie and Jonathan, arrive at the estate. Kylie immediately finds her bed and retires to it with her brown paper bag. Like Scene 5, this was filmed on February 18, 2015.

Scene 10: Filmed on February 18, 2015

The Montana Crew kicks back at the estate, laughing about familial spin the bottle, black and white double sided dildos, and one of their friends still not knowing where they will sleep later that evening. Though she wasn’t promised it, Everybody’s Favorite Best Friend Malika speaks her blessing and says she is going to be staying in the hotel room that night. Kim brings her back down to earth, saying that the hotel is fully booked and the only room available is the penthouse suite. But get this, even though Kim promised the room to Jonathan, the group decides that Jonathan and Malika can compete for the room with a game of charades. This episode of Always the Bridesmaid and Never the Bride, Even Though Our Best Friends Are Multi-Millionaires With A Lot of Influence was filmed on February 18, 2015.

Scene 11: Filmed on February 20, 2015

Jonathan comes to see Kim in her room, and asks her if the rumors about Bruce are true. When Kim confirms that what he’s heard is correct, Jonathan asks a lot of follow up questions to last week’s episodes. In short: the family is adjusting, Bruce is very happy, the family has each other, and everyone will be alright. This very informative and not at all contrived conversation was filmed on February 20, 2015—one month after Bruce was filmed informing his daughters of his plans to transition.

Scene 12: Filmed on February 18, 2015

The Montana Crew plays charades to see if Everybody’s Favorite Best Friend Malika or Jonathan will earn a bed. With Khloe on Jonathan’s team and Kim on Malika’s, this seems like a very fair, diplomatic game. After a few rounds, Jonathan wins the room and asks Malika to get his bags for him. Malika, good sis: Dash Dolls got picked up! You don’t have to do this anymore! RUN!!! Malika’s loss was filmed on February 18, 2015.

Scene 14: Filmed on February 20, 2015

Kylie and Khloe get ready to hit the slopes, and Kylie mentions a tram she wants to go on that takes you to the highest peak of the mountain. Khloe is terrified, but goes because it’s going to make Kylie happy. They have to take multiple trams to get to the top of the mountain, which isn’t even visible from lower peaks. Luckily for Khloe, the conditions are too bad for them to go all the way up, so they have to ditch this plan. Khloe and Kylie (try to) Take the Highest Peak was filmed on February 20, 2015.

Scene 17: Filmed on February 18, 2015

After their failed attempt at skiing on the highest peak, Kylie calls Khloe into her room to talk about heli-skiing/boarding. In her confessional, Kylie says she’s determined to go to the highest peak since the tram ride didn’t work out in Scene 14. Oddly enough, Kylie asks Khloe to go heli-skiing before they even rode the trams, because this was filmed on February 18, 2015, the same day the Montana Crew arrived, and before they did any skiing at all.

Scene 21: Filmed on February 19, 2015

Kylie and Khloe go heli-skiing. Khloe is panicking, and Kylie is chilling like she does this everyday. After hopping off the helicopter, Kylie and Khloe engage in some winter sports on the mountain. Khloe has some difficulties staying upright, but eventually gathers herself for a nice time with Kylie. Khloe and Kylie (actually) Take the Highest Peak was filmed on February 19, 2015, the day before they couldn’t make it to the top of the mountain via trams in Scene 14. Their intuition must be out of this world!

Scene 23: Filmed on February 20, 2015

Khloe plays pool with Jonathan and asks him to apologize to Everybody’s Favorite Best Friend, Malika for being rude to her. Apparently, Jonathan told Malika she was jealous of him because he snagged the more famous friend. Jonathan clarifies his comments, and claims he said that he got the hotel room because Kim was more famous than Khloe. Ahhh, much better. Kim adds on to Jonathan’s comment, saying she took care of her friend and expected Khloe to do the same for Malika. Khloe’s now pissed, because Kim booked the estate without telling her there wouldn’t be room for Malika. Kim isn’t having it and accuses Malika and Khloe of having an inferiority complex and insinuates that Khloe keeps Malika around to showboat for and entertain her. Kim, don’t be fucking rude! This scene where Kimberly Noel Kardashian West, mother of a biracial child, accused a black woman of putting on a show for a white woman and calling it friendship, was filmed on February 20, 2015—the same night the Montana Crew celebrated Jonathan’s birthday.

Scene 25: Filmed on February 20, 2015

Scott is driving Jonathan, Malika, Kourtney and Khloe when he gets caught behind an SUV that keeps hitting the brakes. Scott, caught between this SUV and a 16-wheeler, almost has a major accident when the SUV stops abruptly, nearly causing the 16-wheeler to rear-end his car. Scott is PISSED so he pulls up next to the SUV, yells, and spits. Due to proximity and what we believe to be physics, the spit does not land on the driver of the other SUV, but on Jonathan. Oh well. This was filmed on February 20, 2015.

That’s it for today, dolls! See you next week for our mid-season finale KUWTSnow Bunnies re-cap on KUWTKE. #DontBeFuckingRude

Mariah Smith is writer and comedic performer who keeps up with the Kardashians. For more Keeping Up With The Kontinuity Errors click here. You can follow her on twitter @mRiah.

Last week, 19 Kids and Counting’s Josh Duggar admitted that he molested his sisters when he was a teenager. Though his parents Jim Bob and Michelle successfully helped him avoid prosecution for his crimes, a couple of men have defended the way the Duggars handled the abusive situation in their home. Mike Huckabee has stood by the family in the wake of the scandal, and Jessa Duggar’s father-in-law Michael Seewald has attested that Jim Bob and Michelle “acted in a way that godly parents should.”

But what does Jim Bob think of his own response to his son’s familial abuse? In a brief statement to People, Jim Bob and Michelle said last week that “that dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before.” Maybe that’s because Jim Bob publicly stated during his 2002 campaign for U.S. Senate that he thinks incest should be punishable by death.

Jim Bob’s platform on his campaign website—preserved via web cache—states that he believes “rape and incest represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.” Jim Bob offered this belief to explain his position on abortion (only acceptable if both the mother and the baby were going to die anyway, of course):

Jim Bob lost the Republican nomination for Senate to Arkansas’ incumbent Senator Tim Hutchinson. His son Josh remained very much alive and went on to molest several underage girls including some of his sisters from 2002-2003.

Got a tip about the Duggars? Email me at allie@gawker.com.

Photo via Getty.

As wide-eyed foreigners lustily eye Havana real estate, liberalized Cuban economic rules are “re-gentrifying the city along racial lines and class divisions, particularly because lighter-skinned Cubans are more likely to have relatives abroad with money to invest.” Viva capitalismo!

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

The rumors appear to be true: Bayna El-Amin, the man wanted by police after hitting another man over the head with a chair in a fight at the Chelsea Dallas BBQ earlier this month, seems to have been romantically involved with another man. Gawker has discovered what looks to be El-Amin’s Facebook page, which is listed under an alias variation of his apparent birth name and contains several pictures of a man with identical-looking features and facial hair as the man in the Dallas BBQ videos, as well as El-Amin’s various mugshots. There is reference to the page’s owner working the door at a nightclub; Animal uncovered that a now-deleted Facebook page in El-Amin’s full name listed him as “Personal Security for Sketchie ENTertainment,” a nightclub promotion company.

Per El-Amin’s still-active Facebook page, he had a male fiancé as of February 2014:

There is also a screenshot of an Instagram posted of El-Amin and the man he identifies as his fiancé, which is captioned “Bear & Cub,” which are terms used in the gay community to describe hairy, generally rotund men of varying sizes:

On May 5, El-Amin allegedly attacked fellow Dallas BBQ diners Jonathan Snipes and Ethan York-Adams, who are boyfriends. In an interview with DNAinfo published the morning after the attack, Snipes said, “These guys attacked us specifically because they knew we weren’t their type of people,” and indicated that people at his attacker’s table had referred to him and his boyfriend as “white faggots.”

Snipes also alleged that his attacker said, “Take that faggot,” while kicking Snipes. Initially the NYPD told the press that the incident was not being investigated as a hate crime, but soon after the story went viral, the department said that it was.

If El-Amin, who has been described as a “carer criminal” by the NYPD, was in fact Snipes’s attacker, then his sexuality complicates this matter. If the primary factor that signals this attack as a hate crime is the attacker’s alleged use of the word “faggot,” authorities need to take into consideration the multilayered relationship many gay men have with that word.

Of course, gay men can say “faggot” in a manner that is just as hateful and hurtful as when it comes out the mouths of their straight counterparts, and “Take that, faggot,” would seem to qualify. But referring to one’s fellow diner’s as “faggots,” doesn’t, necessarily. The word “faggot” can also be used as a term of endearment or even something that approaches the benign that’s along the lines of “dude” (as in, “Hey, faggot”). It can be a familial descriptor that signals to your group, “Hey, look over there: by virtue of being gay, we recognize those other gays.” Larry Kramer’s 1978 novel, Faggots, was as much an indictment of the gay community as it was a sociological exposé and, at times, a celebration, and rapper Cakes da Killa uses “faggot” to describe himself (“Hey, it’s Killa Killa / The prima donna head momma, ain’t no faggot come realer”), his audience (“keep these other faggots gawkin’”), and his competition (“How these little faggots think it’s Cakey they can handle / Bitch I’m oven ready and you hot like a candle”). The last instance subverts and reclaims hip-hop’s homophobic reputation in the service of self-inflation.

All this is to say that when a straight guy says “faggot,” unless he is hyper-enlightened and just trying to be “down” (or in a words-as-words scenario), you can count on it having at least an undercurrent of hatred. When a gay guy says it, it doesn’t, necessarily. It’s way more complicated than that.

There’s also the question of whether a gay person is even capable of committing a hate crime against another gay person, regardless of what words are said. Public record of such cases is limited. In 2011, a homeless man named Anthony Bray denied any bias in what was first presented to the public as an anti-gay attack on a man named Damian Furtch—as Bray claimed that he, too, was gay. In 2012, lawyers of three women charged with beating a gay man in Boston argued that their clients didn’t commit a hate crime because they were openly gay, themselves.

But the most famous, most extensively documented instance of the gay defense being used in a hate crime case happened during the criminal trial of one of the four men implicated in the murder of Michael Sandy, who was found lying unconscious on the side of the Belt Parkway in October 2006 (a few days later he was taken off his respirator in the hospital and died). The lawyer for Anthony Fortunato, who had masterminded the plan to lure Sandy from Williamsburg to Sheepshead Bay via an AOL chatroom so that he and a few of his friends could smoke Sandy’s marijuana, announced in his opening statement that Fortunato couldn’t be guilty of a hate crime because Fortunato himself was gay—a claim partially corroborated by his AOL buddy list.

Fortunato eventually was convicted of manslaughter, which his jury also unanimously agreed was a hate crime. But, as Robert Kolker wrote in the 2007 New York magazine article “When Is a Hate Crime Not a Hate Crime?”:

Within minutes of the verdict, the foreman, a 46-year-old playwright named Eric Zaccar, told reporters what had gone on behind closed doors. He declared that no juror seriously thought Anthony was a bigot, or had set out to brutalize a homosexual that October night—and they certainly didn’t believe that he ever laid a hand on Michael Sandy. What the jury did, Zaccar said, was what they were instructed to do: Follow the letter of the law. In order to convict, the judge told them, they needed only to be convinced that Anthony intentionally selected Sandy “in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception on his part” of Sandy’s sexual orientation. “I’m never going to feel good about this,” Zaccar said. “Not one person on that jury believed that it was a hate crime.”

Fortunato was convicted in October 2007 and is set to be released from prison next month.

For some perspective in the Dallas BBQ incident, I spoke with Lambda Legal Deputy Legal Director Hayley Gorenberg. “Under New York law, the identity or perceived identity of an aggressor or a target is not itself sufficient to support a charge of a hate crime,” she told me. “What’s required under the New York hate crime law is that the identity or perceived identity of the target be a substantial motivation for the attack. None of us, just by virtue of who we are, are a hate crime target or aggressor; it goes to an assessment of the motivation of a person. Even if the victim or the aggressor share the same characteristics, that’s not going to answer the question of whether what happened here was a hate crime. It’s going to be about the motivation.”

I wondered if the law could account for the nuance of the word “faggot,” which is crucial if that is the sole indicator in this case of El-Amin’s supposed bias. “I think it might depend,” she said. “There are people in various communities—LGBT communities, racial communities—who use words differently or maybe take or reclaim words and use them differently, words that have been traditionally used as slurs. People can use words in a descriptive and insulting way, and even though they’re using them in a descriptive and insulting way, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that if they committed a crime it was motivated by the identity of the person they were describing or calling names. It might be an indicator that it was, but it might not be. It would depend on looking at the full range of facts.”

I wondered if the apparent differences in size and type would matter at all here. Culturally, most of us are well aware of anti-gay bias among straights, and many of us are familiar with the so-called self-hatred that leads gay people to hurt themselves and their communities (think closeted politicians voting for anti-gay legislation). But what if this attack was born of a more specialized, less discussed bigotry—a bigger, more stereotypically masculine guy targeting a smaller, more stereotypically feminine one?

“It would depend if it was a motivator, and a significant motivator,” said Gorenberg. “Once we start getting into gradations of identity in this way, I think it might be worth looking at the way that people who are charged with crimes are described, particularly African American men, who just because of implicit bias and sometimes explicit bias, we know there is a history through present times a tendency to view those men as somehow inherently more aggressive or likely to be criminals. So there are many different factors and one has to be careful because it’s complicated in looking at this.”

Last week, the NYPD announced that El-Amin was at large. The police believe he fled the state.

If you know anything about Bayna El-Amin or this case, please contact me at rich@gawker.com.

One of yesterday’s episodes of Judge Judy (a rerun, it turns out) included a case titled, per Time Warner Cable’s description, “High on Drugs or Espresso Shots?!” Though plaintiff Shannon Jones ended up passing a drug test that Judge Judy ordered, I still believe the answer to the titular question is: a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B.

Jones provided nothing less than a tour de force performance for Judge Judy’s audience.

Jones’ case, much like her self-presentation, was an erratic mess—she was suing a former friend who’d co-signed on her car. She had let the insurance lapse and incurred about a thousand dollars in parking tickets for a car that was in the defendant’s name. She wanted the car back.

At one point, Jones launched into a monologue that included the sentence, “I’m sorry that I have cystic fibrosis.”

The words “Passed drug test” running under Jones’s ranting and raving comprise the shadiest chyron I’ve ever seen on this show.

She also asked Judge Judy for advice, and then her autograph.

Jones did not like Judy’s ruling and to her former friend she said, “You’re fuckin’ dead,” and then, “Brandon, I’m fucking...not going...to be your friend.”

Bailiff Byrd, as usual, said it all with no words:

At least two people were killed after flash floods ripped through Houston following an estimated 10 inches of rain last night.

The death toll from the storm system that devastated parts of Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma on Monday now stands at 22, including 13 who were killed in a tornado in northern Mexico.

One victim, the Houston Chronicle reports, was found inside the cab of a flooded pickup this morning at about 5 am; another was reportedly discovered hours later, floating in a bayou. A third person was found dead last night outside of a parking garage, but it’s unclear if thatdeath was weather related.

Twelve people remain missing in Hays County, Texas. Of those twelve, eight were staying in a vacation home along the Blanco River. From the New York Times:

One of the homes held Jonathan McComb, 36, his wife and two children and two other families from Corpus Christi — nine in all, including at least three children. On Monday, Mr. McComb was in a San Antonio hospital with a collapsed lung and broken bones.

The other eight were missing, along with four others from the area, apparently lost in the torrent that capped weeks of rain and violent weather across Texas and Oklahoma.

Among those missing from the home are Laura McComb and her two children, Leighton and Andrew. According to KXAN, McComb was on the phone with her sister when the flood struck, sweeping the cabin away.

“We are floating in a house that is now floating down the river,” McComb reportedly said. “Call mom and dad. I love you, and pray.”

The Times also reports that that Houston public schools are closed today and the city’s rail and bus service are suspended, except for a few core routes that reopened last this morning.

Image via AP. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

What’s the coolest thing you did as a teen? What was the most illegal thing? Ever think about stealing a car for a quick joyride, then doing it again almost immediately after? One noble teen in the Bronx did. A legendary teen with nothing to lose.

DNAinfo reports that the NYPD is on the lookout for a boy between the ages of 16 and 18 who was allegedly caught on camera stealing a Lexus from a residential home in the Bronx (as well as a pair of shoes, which, okay.) The car was found two days later, undamaged and claimed by its owners. At this point, one would assume the teen would not try to steal the car again, but you must not know teens if you believe this to be true. From DNAinfo:

The next day, on May 19, the teen returned to try to steal the car again, but was chased off by a neighbor, officials said.

Have you seen this dumbass teen? The NYPD asks that you let them know.

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

Recently, the readers of the esteemed Wall Street Journal were given an opportunity to share their opinion on “dunking,” the high-flying activity that has become all the rage of the basketball world.

When you think of “dunks,” you might think of Michael Jordan, or Lew Alcindor, or perhaps of Asher Price’s new book Year of the Dunk, which was reviewed last week in the Wall Street Journal—a newspaper that you, a Wall Street Journal-subscribing basketball aficionado, avidly consume. As a matter of fact, the comment section of that book review presented the perfect opportunity for you, the typical Wall Street Journal reader, to share your views on “dunks.”

While an expressive act, a dunk is still worth only 2 points. Oscar Robertson and many others entered the Basketball Hall of Fame without the dunk being a part of their repertoire. It is too bad that the dunk itself is a symbol of violence and domination, something that is all too much a part of the inner city experience. Lost to the pure athleticism of today’s game is gracefulness, passing, weaving, solid fundamentals and such from the 1960’s and 70’s

At 6’4 I loved trying to dunk. Kept trying a long time. Had no flightworthiness. Those guys and a gal who could do it were awesome. Finally learned to lower the basket to impress my grandkids. But jump and shoot still wins over the dunk.

I played high school basketball from 1938 to 41. The game then bears almost no resemblance to what is played today. The layup shot was the bread and butter shot, because if you touched the rim it was no goal. Keeping the ball on your fingertips was essential because palming the ball was illegal and often called when dribbling. I grew to 6’ 6” in high school, and tried to dunk the ball. which I rarely could do without touching the basket. Watching guys swing off the basket just doesn’t do it for me.

This has been: Wall Street Journal readers sharing their surprising views on “dunks.”

[Photo: AP]

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Want to create a Wikipedia article about yourself, or edit the article that’s already out there to make yourself look better? Go ahead: Wikipedia policy discourages the practice, but there’s nothing really stopping you, especially if you’re working from an anonymous IP address. Anyone can do it—even parliamentary staffers.

According to the Telegraph, Wikipedia pages pertaining to 12 members of UK Parliament were anonymously edited by IP addresses within Parliament itself in recent months. Some of the edits were innocuous—such as the addition of the honorific “The Right Honorable” to MPs’ names—but many were not. A Parliamentary IP address deleted a mention of MP Craig Whittaker’s 2012 arrest for allegedly assaulting his son in a gas station (he was released without being charged), for instance, and another removed links to new stories about the family values-oriented Tory politician Bob Blackman’s alleged 11-year extramarital affair.

The IP addresses used to make the offending edits—and there are many more of them—only specify that the corresponding computers are owned by Parliament, not who is using them, so it is impossible to know whether employees of the implicated MPs are to blame. “However,” the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith notes, “it is unclear why people unconnected to the politician or party would gloss up the Wikipedia biographies from inside Parliament.”

The free encyclopedia is a powerful tool, and its democratic nature means that nearly anyone can use it for education and deception alike. Google “Bob Blackman,” and the second result is his Wikipedia page. The affair was never scrubbed from the article entirely, but the two links that were removed by a Parliamentary IP address—a Mirror story headlined “Caught with his pants down” and a quote from an alleged former mistress claiming that Blackman was a “terrible lover”—were never reinstated.

Regardless of the educational merits—or lack thereof—of a blurb about Blackman’s apparently lackluster lovemaking, Wikipedia is trusted as an independent and ostensibly neutral source of information, and it is currently hosting an article that was likely edited with the specific intent of increasing Blackman’s chances at reelection. The Parliamentary IP address—which also added Blackman’s name to a list of notable pupils of the Preston Manor School—removed the “pants down” and “terrible lover” links in February, three months before Blackman’s successful reelection bid this month.

For a live feed of every single anonymous Wikipedia edit made from within Parliament, follow the Twitter bot @parliamentedits. Of course, Parliamentary staffers aren’t the only powerful Wikipedia contributors with less-than-noble intentions: U.S. Congress, the Canadian Government, and tech companies like Apple and Google have great Twitter bots tracking their edits as well.

Image via AP. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

As expected, the Cleveland police department has reached a settlement with the Justice Department over the department’s history of brutal and unconstitutional policing. The deal will explicitly prohibit officers from pistol whipping suspects, using force to retaliate for talking back, and firing warning shots.

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Mary Ellen Mark, 75, passed away in New York City Monday. During her 40-year career, Mark photographed lepers, circus performers, street kids, hustlers, Gypsies, addicts, and anyone who, in her words, “didn’t have the best breaks in life.”

Mark captured the tough edges of society in a humane but realist style. She was a gifted street photographer, but what made her at portraiture exceptional was the intimacy embedded in all her pictures. Unlike Diane Arbus, whose frank and gritty style is often compared to Mark’s, Mark’s work featured more compassion than pity.

With a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania, Mark got her first big break in 1969 photographing heroin addicts in London. In the mid-1970s Mark was asked by a magazine to do a behind the scenes shoot on One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s set at the Oregon State Hospital for the mentally ill. Mark was intrigued by the female patients and spent 36 days photographing the women for her book Ward 81. Time’s Robert Hughs wrote about Mark’s six week project in the hospital, saying, “What resulted was, in fact, a lamentation: one of the most delicately shaded studies of vulnerability ever set on film.” In 1981, Mark went to India to document teenage prostitutes working in the red-light district of Mumbai for her book Falkland Road.

My favorite book by Mark is Streetwise, a collection of portraits of Seattle’s street kids in the mid-80s with a 14-year-old streetwalker named Tiny at its center. Mark and her husband Martin Bell made a documentary about Tiny and the kids that was nominated for an Oscar. It is very much worth watching.

The image up top of the young girl and her pal smoking in the kiddie pool was shot by Mark in North Carolina in 1990. It is my favorite image by Mark, and possibly one of my favorite photographs of anything. Mark said this of the photograph in an interview: “She’s smoking a cigarette, she’s on the edge, she’s my favorite. She was so bad she was wonderful, she had a really vulgar mouth, she was brilliant.” Mark added: “I was something of a problem kid. I was emotional, wild, rebellious at school. I’m very touched by kids who don’t have advantages; they are much more interesting than kids who have everything. They have a lot of passion and emotion, such a strong will.”

Mark is survived by her husband. You can see more of her work here.

Images via MaryEllenMark.com

Contact the author at natasha.vargas-cooper@jezebel.com.