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Tyler Perry Presents: Where the Hell Are My Goddamn Lobster Tails

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Tyler Perry Presents: Where the Hell Are My Goddamn Lobster Tails

ALERT: We have received reports of a luxurious catastrophe on the set of Tyler Perry’s OWN soap opera If Loving You Is Wrong. “Approximately” 35 lobster tails are missing and nobody knows where they are. If you have any information—any at all—that could lead to the recovery of pounds upon pounds of succulent lobster meat, a newfound life of wealth could be yours.

The following email was allegedly sent out to those working on the show’s Atlanta set. It is a very serious email and not a drill.

Tyler Perry Presents: Where the Hell Are My Goddamn Lobster Tails

Please, if you know the whereabouts of Tyler Perry’s 35 lobster tails, immediately notify Katrina in production as well as me, Jordan of Gawker Media. We both swear that we will keep your identity confidential. We will protect you at all costs.

Stealing frozen lobster tails is a serious crime and only the true culprits should be punished!

[email via Cool Freaks jpeg Facebook group / top image via Getty]


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.


Nearly two weeks after the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat sent Clinton Correctional Facility

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Nearly two weeks after the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat sent Clinton Correctional Facility into an official lockdown—requiring inmates to remain in their cells almost exclusively—the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced yesterday that the facility returned to normal operation.


Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Idiot Steals Car But Can't Drive Stick So He Calls A Cab

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Idiot Steals Car But Can't Drive Stick So He Calls A Cab

A man who mistakenly left his keys in his car first assumed it was a prank when he found it gone. It wasn’t a prank, it was actually stolen, but the result was way funnier than any prank would have been. That’s because the guy who stole it couldn’t drive stick, and then tried to call a cab. Oh boy.

Boy genius Alexander Katz was the 19-year old mastermind behind the crime, which he committed with a juvenile female passenger. Even better, the female passenger did know how to drive stick, but for some unfathomable reason thought it would be a better idea to try and teach Katz how to drive a manual right then, in a stolen car in broad daylight. Good thinking, passenger!

After getting frustrated at Katz’ probable many, many stalls and grinding gears, the wonder twins abandoned the car at a grocery store, and called a cab from a nearby convenience store. Police, already alerted to the pair of half-ass auto larcenists by the car’s owner, who saw them lurching around in his car, found the pair waiting for the taxi to arrive.

They then attempted to escape on foot, which I guess didn’t work out so hot, either, mostly because the cab company had all of Katz’ personal information.

There’s so many lessons to take away from this, I think we need a list:

• Try not to leave your keys in your car.

• If you’re going to steal a car, make sure you can drive it.

• Learning to drive a manual transmission is a fantastic idea! Just don’t start on the car you just stole.

• Juvenile female passengers, listen to me: you can do better. If you can drive stick, step up from that passenger seat! And if the guy you’re with can’t drive stick and looks, well, like that, hold out.

Idiot.


Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.

Taylor Swift Is a Legit Psycho Who Has NEVER Taken Her Bra Off

Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

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Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

Occasionally, against all odds, you’ll see an interesting or even enjoyable picture on the Internet. But is it worth sharing, or just another Photoshop job that belongs in the digital trash heap? Check in here and find out if that viral photo deserves an enthusiastic “forward” or a pitiless “delete.”

Image via Instagram


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Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

On Saturday, deadly floodwaters hit Tbilisi, Georgia, killing at least 19 and releasing an unknown number of animals from the Tbilisi Zoological Park and onto the city’s streets.

As Twitter’s @hoaxeye pointed out, however, the above photo said to be from Tbilisi was actually taken after flooding in Indian-controlled Kashmir last year, then bearing the caption “A mother dog tries to save her pup in Rajbagh.”

A widely-circulated image of a lion supposedly roaming Tbilisi was similarly misattributed. While lions were among the animals that escaped on Saturday, the picture is almost a decade old and was taken at Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Image via Twitter//h/t Snopes


FORWARD

Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

However, there was no shortage of legitimate stunning images from last weekend’s disaster, including a memorable series of photos showing an escaped hippopotamus. Eventually, the hippo was tranquilized and led by Tbilisi residents back to the city’s zoo.

Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

Images via Twitter


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Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

When Australian surfer Alex Hayes posted this shark-enhanced selfie on Instagram last Thursday, the 17-year-old had no idea the image would become the subject of international news, earning write-ups from The Independent, The Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail.

To the few reporters that asked, however, Hayes readily admitted the photo was a fake.

“It is not real,” Hayes told News.com.au this week. “I thought it was obvious from the start and it was just a funny photo but circulated more than I thought so without acting anything or lying, me and my mate just rolled with it.”

Image via Instagram


FORWARD

Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

This fun photo of a raccoon hanging out on the back of an alligator is chill and real, snapped by a hiker in Florida’s Ocala National Forest last weekend. Cool, right?

Image via Twitter


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Forward or Delete: This Week's Fake Viral Photos

Finally, this week saw the return of the above long-debunked, seemingly unkillable image supposedly showing a female warrior in feudal Japan. Ignoring the fact that photography only came to Japan as the nation was abandoning feudalism, the auction listing that’s the source of the photo clearly describes it as a portrait of a kabuki actor during the modernizing Meiji era.

Image via Twitter//h/t @PicPedant

500 Days of Kristin, Day 145: What Jay Cutler Wants for Father's Day

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500 Days of Kristin, Day 145: What Jay Cutler Wants for Father's Day

If you haven’t sent the dad in your life a gift for Father’s Day yet, it is basically too late—sorry. However, if you find a hole in the space-time continuum and decide to use it to go back in time to three days ago when you should have bought him a present, here are some shopping suggestions from Jay Cutler, husband of Kristin Cavallari.

In a post on the Official Kristin Cavallari App for iPhone and Android titled, “Jay’s Father’s Day Gift Guide,” Kristin writes:

I had [Jay] put together a gift guide for the app, but secretly it was to see what gifts he had been eyeing. He covered everyone in his list so hopefully this helps you out with your own man. I’m glad I had him do this because now I can get him exactly what he wants!

Here is this list that Jay—allegedly—provided to Kristin to put on her app. Neither Kristin nor Jay added links to where you can find any of these items, so if you want to buy one, you’re on your own. This list has been copied verbatim (though photos have been removed). Kristin and Jay can argue about who was responsible for the capitalization and grammar errors.

  1. “For the traveler: Hardgraft Refresh Dopp Kit”
  2. “For the gamer: Pre Order Your Copy Of The #StarWars Battlefront Game”
  3. “For the outdoorsman: Civilware Striker Folding Knife”
  4. “For the metro guy or the guy that just loves his hair: Shu Uemura Art of Hair Shape Paste”
  5. “For the beer drinker: Corkcicle 3001S Arctican Stainless Steel Can Cooler”
  6. “For the techy guy: IPHONE SuperFly Cables”
  7. “For the guy that loves to grill: Big Green Egg”

Is your father figure a “gamer” or “the guy that just loves his hair”? That’s on you to decide.


This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

Tropical Depression Bill Still Depressed Over Missouri, Moving Toward DC

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Tropical Depression Bill Still Depressed Over Missouri, Moving Toward DC

Three days after landfall and after traveling over more than 850 miles of land, Bill is still a tropical depression as it swirls over Missouri. The storm has produced catastrophic flooding along its path, and more flooding is likely through the Ohio Valley and eventually into the I-95 corridor of the Mid-Atlantic.

Bill pushed its way inland after making landfall on Matagorda Island in Texas on Tuesday morning, swirling through Dallas-Forth Worth on Wednesday before crawling through eastern Oklahoma and eventually into Arkansas. The center of Tropical Depression Bill is very close to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at this hour, moving east toward Kentucky.

The system should finally degenerate into a post-tropical cyclone within the next day as it continues moving east, approaching the Washington D.C. and Philadelphia areas as a trough with the threat for heavy rain late Saturday and early Sunday.

It’s not too unusual to see a tropical depression over Missouri, especially if the storm is moving at a fast clip after it makes landfall along the Gulf Coast. However, it’s not every day that you see a cyclone still clinging to tropical depression status three days after landfall as it crawls into the middle of the United States. The fact that it’s still alive after spending so much time over land is a testament to the muggy, tropical airmass present over the region.

Even though skies are clearing out, Bill’s effects are still hanging around. Sadly, the predictions of disastrous heavy rainfall came true. After dumping up to ten inches of rain around Victoria, Texas, the rain let up a bit until it made it to Dallas.

Though the Metroplex generally saw one to three inches of rain, much heavier rain fell just upstream, resulting in considerable flooding in the region. The heavy rain in northern Texas pushed the Trinity River far above its banks in downtown Dallas, engorging the normally-tiny body of water many times its normal size. Under normal circumstances, this section of the river is no wider than a four-lane highway.

Tropical Depression Bill Still Depressed Over Missouri, Moving Toward DC

The worst flooding occurred near hilly terrain in southern Oklahoma around the city of Ardmore. Bill slowed down considerably as it moved through northern Texas and southern Oklahoma, creating an ideal setup for extremely heavy rain across the area. As if its snail-like forward motion wasn’t bad enough, the terrain helped wring out every little bit of tropical moisture from Bill as it swirled over the area on Wednesday and Thursday; the National Weather Service estimates that some areas in southern Oklahoma have received up to 20 inches of rain over the past seven days, most of which fell during Bill.

Locations in and around Ardmore were placed under a flash flood emergency during the event, with waters rising so quickly that many residents didn’t have time to act before they were surrounded by the flood. The flooding claimed several lives, including an Ardmore toddler who was carried away by the rising water as his family tried to evacuate their home, and a woman who drowned in her car after she attempted to drive through a flooded roadway in Tecumseh.

Tropical Depression Bill Still Depressed Over Missouri, Moving Toward DC

The heavy rains are putting stress on already-strained water infrastructure in the region, threatening dams and bridges around the region. A river gauge at the I-35 bridge over the Red River in Gainesville, Texas, is at record flood stage right now, sitting at a record-high crest of 42.05 feet right now. The previous record crest was 40.08 feet set back on May 31, 1987.

The water is so high that it’s expected to reach the low chord, or underside, of the I-35 bridge before receding. Flooding on this section of the Red River begins at 25 feet, and the normal depth of the river is between 10 and 15 feet.

Tropical Depression Bill Still Depressed Over Missouri, Moving Toward DC

The Weather Prediction Center expects a general swath of two to three inches of rain as Bill (and its remnants, if it ever dies) makes its way into the Ohio Valley and eventually the Mid-Atlantic before scooting out into the Atlantic Ocean. Some areas could see more rain than this if they get caught under heavier thunderstorms, and it won’t take much rain over a short period of time to trigger flash flooding on the region’s saturated soil. The greatest threat for flooding exists over areas that have already seen heavy rainfall, including Washington D.C. proper, which saw extremely heavy rain from thunderstorms on Thursday night.

The good news, though, is that it looks like the south-central United States will have a chance to dry out over the next week or so, and the National Hurricane Center doesn’t expect any new tropical cyclones to develop in the Atlantic or the eastern Pacific over the next five days. The bad news is that the lingering heat wave across the southeast is going to get even worse next week.

[Images: NASA, author, NWS, author]


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

Do You Have a Copy of NBC’s Devastating Brian Williams Investigation?

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Do You Have a Copy of NBC’s Devastating Brian Williams Investigation?

Yesterday, NBC News announced the permanent demotion of disgraced Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who will serve as breaking news manager for MSNBC. Network executives came to this decision after an internal investigation turned up “a number of inaccurate statements” made by Williams “about his own role and experiences.” However, as Michael Calderone at The Huffington Post notes, “NBC opted against transparency and declined to make public its findings.”

Do you have a copy of the NBC report? Email us directly or send the document through our anonymous SecureDrop website.

This is an unusual decision when compared to other recent journalism scandals. After Lara Logan retracted a debunked 60 Minutes report concerning the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, CBS News published the findings of their internal review in a company-wide memo. Rolling Stone—a much smaller outlet than either CBS or NBC—went so far as to commission an independent investigation into the magazine’s November 2014 publication of a discredited feature about campus rape, and published the findings in the print edition.

NBC’s internal review was no small task, either. According to NBC, “the review was overseen by Kim Harris, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of NBCUniversal ... [and] was conducted by Richard Esposito, who leads the investigative unit at NBC News.” Given the positions of Harris and Esposito, it’s unclear why NBC would be uncomfortable publishing their findings.

But maybe you happen to possess a copy of the Brian Williams report. If so, shoot us an email (our PGP key can be found here) or send the document via SecureDrop. Anonymity guaranteed.

Email/chat: trotter@gawker.com · PGP key + fingerprint · DM: @jktrotter · Photo credit: Getty


North Korea's New Miracle Drug Cures HIV and Ebola, Says North Korea

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North Korea's New Miracle Drug Cures HIV and Ebola, Says North Korea

North Korea, famed for its unicorns and its non-Photoshopped, totally real missiles, has done it again. The DPRK’s extremely reliable state-run media agency reports that homegrown scientists have found the cure for HIV, various cancers, heart disease, impotence, bad skin, Ebola ... everything, really. Turns out the cure was fertilizer all along. Why didn’t actual scientists think of that?

The compound, Kumdang-2, is allegedly extracted from ginseng using fertilizer, rare-earth elements, gold, and platinum, and solves every health problem with a single injection. It’s definitely real, and definitely not just propaganda meant to troll South Korea as it deals with an outbreak of MERS.

There are no published clinical trials of Kumdang-2, so you’ll just have to rely on “the opinions of millions of patients, all of which have been collected over the last 23 years since May, 1989.” Real patients. Millions of them. For real.

Also, 1989 was not 23 years ago. Either there’s something fishy about this miracle drug, or North Korea’s dear leader, Kim Jong-un, has been in possession of a universal cure for three years and held out on the rest of the world.

Because Kim would never lie to us, I can only conclude it’s the latter. Cold, Kim. Ice cold.

[Photo: Korean Central News Agency]

QUIZ: Only Real '90s Kids Will Recognize These Classic Characters

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QUIZ: Only Real '90s Kids Will Recognize These Classic Characters

The ‘90s, wow. Remember them? Simpler times, when kids had NSYNC and BSB instead of T-Swift and 1D, Yak Baks instead of Yik Yak, and good cartoons instead of bad ones. Cal Ripken, Moesha, Melissa Joan Hart. Chores. Allowance. Nickelodeon Magazine, Please! Remember? Do you? Well here’s a quiz that will definitely take you back. Which of these beloved ‘90s characters can you recognize and name?

Are you a real ‘90s kid, or not?

A Former White House Chef Disappeared Without a Trace Last Week

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A Former White House Chef Disappeared Without a Trace Last Week

An all-out search and rescue effort has thus far failed to yield any sign of former White House chef Walter Scheib, who apparently went missing a week ago.

Officials say Scheib—who ran the White House kitchen under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—is probably somewhere in the Taos Ski Valley. Friends say he had recently moved from Florida and may not have been familiar with the area.

His girlfriend apparently realized he was missing when he failed to show up for a date Monday. Authorities believe he went hiking in the valley sometime on Saturday.

The last trace of him was the car he left behind at the Yerba Canyon Trail Head near the ski valley. Searchers say they are very concerned, because they do not believe he was prepared to spend more than a few hours in the woods. They don’t know where he specifically planned to go, and they fear he was unprepared, carrying very little with him.

Nearly 30 searchers, including teams with dogs and horses, have fanned out across the trails in the area, scouring for any sign of Scheib.

Tracking Scheib has proven difficult. Officials say recent bad weather could be wiping out any clues. Searchers say Scheib has hiked this trail before. They’re also searching creeks and rivers, because Scheib also likes to fish.

According to Taos News, most search efforts have been hampered by weather and terrain: a search and rescue helicopter was unable to spot much through the “densely wooded” canyons, and unmelted snow has made tracking difficult.

Schieb’s friends and family tell police they have no idea where he was headed or why, but police say they’ve found no evidence of foul play and have not processed his Subaru for evidence.


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

Dylann Roof’s Family Releases Statement: “Words Can't Express Our Grief”

.Mic Is Rich as Hell But Everyone's Still Miserable

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.Mic Is Rich as Hell But Everyone's Still Miserable

The website .Mic snapped up a casual $17 million in funding this week to better inform millennials of Things That Sum Up Everything About Something and it seems like founders Jake Horowitz and Christopher Altcheck are pretty happy. Pretty unhappy, however, are the website’s employees, who say morale is worse than ever.

Despite the site’s increasing credibility—in addition to the new funding, the company fired one plagiarist and hired NPR’s Madhulika Sikka as an incoming executive editor—the writers have a lot of complaints.

In an interview with Capital New York, several employees expressed dismay with what they describe as a total disconnect between senior management and edit and, for one fired writer, between senior management and reality.

But while Mic’s predominantly young staff is said to have welcomed the hiring of a veteran news executive, some employees first learned that Horowitz would be giving up his editorial role only after reading Capital’s interview with Altchek about Madhulika Sikka.

(Mic finally addressed Horowitz’s transition in a company all-hands meeting a few hours later, a company source told Capital.)

Several former and current employees who discussed the company with Capital spoke of staff members “being disappeared” (a phrase that cropped up in multiple interviews). “Every two or three weeks, two or three people would just go away randomly,” one former employee said, noting that management would “give a vague explanation” about the exits at the company’s weekly all-staff meetings.

One former employee was taken aback by the number of a times a company executive used the word “awesome” during the meeting in which the individual was told that Mic would not be extending the individual’s contract, or, as the individual put it: “when my life was changing for the worst.”

Some staffers are won over with free snacks and beer in the office, and the “golden mics” for editorial accomplishments awarded in meetings; others view those perks skeptically as a way to keep a small, overworked staff marginally happy.

“They would rather spend money on food and snacks than employees’ livelihood,” said another former staffer.

Others complain about the workday itself, saying they’re shamed for leaving at a reasonable hour: “If you leave at 7 p.m., you get side-eyes,” one employee tells Capital.

For the most part, though, it seems as though most of those interviewed are waiting to see what happens when Sikka formally joins the office in September.

As are we!


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

We Added More Seats to Citizenfour Screening With Judith Miller

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We Added More Seats to Citizenfour Screening With Judith Miller

We sold all of the seats for our June 23rd showing of Citizenfour at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn... so we got a bigger theater! Come hang out with us, watch some Snowden, chat with Judith Miller, and drink some beer.

We’re excited to be showing Laura Poitras’ Academy Award-winning Snowden documentary as a part of our It’s a Conspiracy Film Series, and we’re looking forward to hanging out with you guys.

The documentary starts at 7:30 pm, to be followed by a short panel discussion with Judith Miller and William Arkin.

To grab your seats before we sell out this theater, click here.

Attention Angry Black Woman on Cable News: Please Come Talk to Gawker

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The woman who interrupted a CNN broadcast yesterday to share her anger over the Charleston massacre appears to have shown up on Fox News today. This time, though, her protest was silent as she held up a green sign that read “ANGRY Black Woman” as anchor Mike Tobin spoke.

I thought a lot about this woman last night. Her editorial instincts are way sharper than anyone else she’s shared the screen with so far. She should be heard. She has way more to say about what went down in (presumably) her town than Tobin, John Berman, and Don Lemon put together. The latter two should have dropped their banal banter for two seconds and talked to this woman. If you need the situation cast in the most cynical terms, a piece of content walked into frame, commanded the screen, and gave good TV. Instead of taking advantage of this, Berman and Lemon tried to pretend like it wasn’t happening. Moronic.

This woman’s perspective, her voice, her anger should be heard. She wants them to be heard. I want her to be heard. I’m not endorsing her name-calling, but I’m not dismissing it either. As a white person, I think my role in this particular matter should be one of listener. And I would like to do more of it.

Angry Black Woman, if you are reading this, please get in touch with me (rich@gawker.com) and use Gawker to say what you have to say, however you want to say it. I’m interested, and I hope that many more people will be, as well.

[h/t Mediaite]


Clinton Correctional Officer Placed on Leave Amid Escape Investigation

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Clinton Correctional Officer Placed on Leave Amid Escape Investigation

A corrections officer at Clinton Correctional Facility has been put on administrative leave in connection with an investigation into the escape two weeks ago of inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat, the New York Times reports.

Later on Friday, New York State Police revealed that two men matching descriptions of the escaped prisoners had been seen a week ago near a rail yard in the town Erwin, N.Y.—over three hundred miles from Clinton Correctional. The next day, two men with the same description were seen in Lindley, N.Y., heading on foot towards the Pennsylvania border.

The Wall Street Journal reports that State Police obtained video footage of two men who appear to be the escaped inmates. “They are someplace,” David N. Favro, the Clinton County sheriff, said. “We will definitely find them.”

According to the Times, the investigation at the prison is focussing on as many as four officers “who either had switched their posts in the months before the escape or had often been seen at night around the cellblock where the two men were housed.” Investigators are examining the officers’ bank and phone records.

Joyce Mitchell, a civilian employee of the prison, was arrested last week for allegedly helping Matt and Sweat escape. Apparently, she wanted them to kill her husband.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

At Least Two Dead After Man Drives SUV Into F1 Crowd, Stabs Survivors [UPDATED]

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At Least Two Dead After Man Drives SUV Into F1 Crowd, Stabs Survivors [UPDATED]

At least two people are dead and around thirty more are injured, according to the BBC, after a 26-year-old Austrian man in a Daewoo Rexton SUV drove into a crowd and started stabbing people at a square hosting an event related to the Austrian Grand Prix in nearby Graz. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: 11:50 AM EDT] More details have been released about the driver and the numbers of injured pedestrians. According to The Independent, over thirty pedestrians were among the injured. Three were children, and ten were taken to the hospital with serious injuries. (We initially reported that over fifty pedestrians were injured and have updated the paragraph above.)

The driver is an Austrian man of Bosnian heritage who works as a professional driver and is married, with two children. He was arrested immediately following the incident.

A city spokesperson told The Independent that the driver started the rampage at Zweiglgasse, killing one person there. Mayor Siegfried Nagl of Graz was riding a Vespa near Zweiglgasse and told The Independent that the driver’s SUV overtook a bus at a high rate of speed, hitting a man in the process.

Per the spokesman, the driver then drove over the Schönaugasse bridge and into a cafe seating area on the Jakominiplatz square on Herrengasse.

“I had a friend who was there and she saw people flying through the air. She saw bodies lying there, it was absolute chaos and mayhem,” Dr. Sea Rottman told Sky News, as quoted by The Independent. “Apparently the guy was attacking two elderly people with a knife and then attacking police with a knife when he got out.”

Pedestrians fled inside local shops for safety after the SUV drove into the crowded seating area.

The Graz city council has released the following statement, as published in The Independent:

At 12pm there was an appalling incident in the centre of Graz, which has caused major alarm and left the city deeply shaken.

A killer used his car as a weapon and deliberately ran people down on a rampage. The perpetrator is in custody.

Police told The Independent that they believe the driver is suffering from mental illness.


[EARLIER:] Eyewitnesses report that the car was traveling at a high rate of speed when it entered the town square. Per The Independent, Police say the man got out of the car after driving into the car and started stabbing survivors. A seven-year-old boy is reportedly one of the dead.

The incident occurred on Herrengasse, Graz’s main shopping street, around noon local time. The street is popular with tourists.

The BBC reports that the part of the city that was hosting the celebration has been sealed off as emergency crews work and at least two bodies were spotted covered in blankets.

Correction: We initially reported the car was a Ssangyong Rexton, however, J-Tenno points out that it is actually the Daewoo Rexton, a rebadge of the Ssangyong. The paragraph above has been updated.

Photo credit: AP Images


Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.

Here Is What Appears to Be Dylann Roof’s Racist Manifesto

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Here Is What Appears to Be Dylann Roof’s Racist Manifesto

Via Twitter users @HenryKrinkle and @EMQuangel, here is what appears to be Charleston shooter Dylann Roof’s racist manifesto. “The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case,” the author of this document writes. “I can say today that I am completely racially aware.”

It goes on: “Black people are racially aware almost from birth, but White people on average dont think about race in their daily lives.”

The manifesto comes from a website registered under Dylann Roof’s name, lastrhodesian.com, discovered through a Reverse Whois lookup on domaintools.com.

There are two links on the front page of lastrhodesian.com: one is to a text file; the other is to a .zip folder, which contains numerous photographs of Roof. In several of these, he is seen to be wearing a jacket stitched with the flag of the white supremacist state of Rhodesia.

In the manifesto—which you can read here, and is not signed—the author concludes, after two thousand words articulating his theories justifying racial violence:

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.

Read the full document below:

I was not raised in a racist home or environment. Living in the South, almost every White person has a small amount of racial awareness, simply beause of the numbers of negroes in this part of the country. But it is a superficial awareness. Growing up, in school, the White and black kids would make racial jokes toward each other, but all they were were jokes. Me and White friends would sometimes would watch things that would make us think that “blacks were the real racists” and other elementary thoughts like this, but there was no real understanding behind it.

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

From this point I researched deeper and found out what was happening in Europe. I saw that the same things were happening in England and France, and in all the other Western European countries. Again I found myself in disbelief. As an American we are taught to accept living in the melting pot, and black and other minorities have just as much right to be here as we do, since we are all immigrants. But Europe is the homeland of White people, and in many ways the situation is even worse there. From here I found out about the Jewish problem and other issues facing our race, and I can say today that I am completely racially aware.

Blacks

I think it is is fitting to start off with the group I have the most real life experience with, and the group that is the biggest problem for Americans.

Niggers are stupid and violent. At the same time they have the capacity to be very slick. Black people view everything through a racial lense. Thats what racial awareness is, its viewing everything that happens through a racial lense. They are always thinking about the fact that they are black. This is part of the reason they get offended so easily, and think that some thing are intended to be racist towards them, even when a White person wouldnt be thinking about race. The other reason is the Jewish agitation of the black race.

Black people are racially aware almost from birth, but White people on average dont think about race in their daily lives. And this is our problem. We need to and have to.

Say you were to witness a dog being beat by a man. You are almost surely going to feel very sorry for that dog. But then say you were to witness a dog biting a man. You will most likely not feel the same pity you felt for the dog for the man. Why? Because dogs are lower than men.

This same analogy applies to black and White relations. Even today, blacks are subconsciously viewed by White people are lower beings. They are held to a lower standard in general. This is why they are able to get away with things like obnoxious behavior in public. Because it is expected of them.

Modern history classes instill a subconscious White superiority complex in Whites and an inferiority complex in blacks. This White superiority complex that comes from learning of how we dominated other peoples is also part of the problem I have just mentioned. But of course I dont deny that we are in fact superior.

I wish with a passion that niggers were treated terribly throughout history by Whites, that every White person had an ancestor who owned slaves, that segregation was an evil an oppressive institution, and so on. Because if it was all it true, it would make it so much easier for me to accept our current situation. But it isnt true. None of it is. We are told to accept what is happening to us because of ancestors wrong doing, but it is all based on historical lies, exaggerations and myths. I have tried endlessly to think of reasons we deserve this, and I have only came back more irritated because there are no reasons.

Only a fourth to a third of people in the South owned even one slave. Yet every White person is treated as if they had a slave owning ancestor. This applies to in the states where slavery never existed, as well as people whose families immigrated after slavery was abolished. I have read hundreds of slaves narratives from my state. And almost all of them were positive. One sticks out in my mind where an old ex-slave recounted how the day his mistress died was one of the saddest days of his life. And in many of these narratives the slaves told of how their masters didnt even allowing whipping on his plantation.

Segregation was not a bad thing. It was a defensive measure. Segregation did not exist to hold back negroes. It existed to protect us from them. And I mean that in multiple ways. Not only did it protect us from having to interact with them, and from being physically harmed by them, but it protected us from being brought down to their level. Integration has done nothing but bring Whites down to level of brute animals. The best example of this is obviously our school system.

Now White parents are forced to move to the suburbs to send their children to “good schools”. But what constitutes a “good school”? The fact is that how good a school is considered directly corresponds to how White it is. I hate with a passion the whole idea of the suburbs. To me it represents nothing but scared White people running. Running because they are too weak, scared, and brainwashed to fight. Why should we have to flee the cities we created for the security of the suburbs? Why are the suburbs secure in the first place? Because they are White. The pathetic part is that these White people dont even admit to themselves why they are moving. They tell themselves it is for better schools or simply to live in a nicer neighborhood. But it is honestly just a way to escape niggers and other minorities.

But what about the White people that are left behind? What about the White children who, because of school zoning laws, are forced to go to a school that is 90 percent black? Do we really think that that White kid will be able to go one day without being picked on for being White, or called a “white boy”? And who is fighting for him? Who is fighting for these White people forced by economic circumstances to live among negroes? No one, but someone has to.

Here I would also like to touch on the idea of a Norhtwest Front. I think this idea is beyond stupid. Why should I for example, give up the beauty and history of my state to go to the Norhthwest? To me the whole idea just parralells the concept of White people running to the suburbs. The whole idea is pathetic and just another way to run from the problem without facing it.

Some people feel as though the South is beyond saving, that we have too many blacks here. To this I say look at history. The South had a higher ratio of blacks when we were holding them as slaves. Look at South Africa, and how such a small minority held the black in apartheid for years and years. Speaking of South Africa, if anyone thinks that think will eventually just change for the better, consider how in South Africa they have affirmative action for the black population that makes up 80 percent of the population.

It is far from being too late for America or Europe. I believe that even if we made up only 30 percent of the population we could take it back completely. But by no means should we wait any longer to take drastic action.

Anyone who thinks that White and black people look as different as we do on the outside, but are somehow magically the same on the inside, is delusional. How could our faces, skin, hair, and body structure all be different, but our brains be exactly the same? This is the nonsense we are led to believe.

Negroes have lower Iqs, lower impulse control, and higher testosterone levels in generals. These three things alone are a recipe for violent behavior. If a scientist publishes a paper on the differences between the races in Western Europe or Americans, he can expect to lose his job. There are personality traits within human families, and within different breeds of cats or dogs, so why not within the races?

A horse and a donkey can breed and make a mule, but they are still two completely different animals. Just because we can breed with the other races doesnt make us the same.

In a modern history class it is always emphasized that, when talking about “bad” things Whites have done in history, they were White. But when we lern about the numerous, almost countless wonderful things Whites have done, it is never pointed out that these people were White. Yet when we learn about anything important done by a black person in history, it is always pointed out repeatedly that they were black. For example when we learn about how George Washington carver was the first nigger smart enough to open a peanut.

On another subject I want to say this. Many White people feel as though they dont have a unique culture. The reason for this is that White culture is world culture. I dont mean that our culture is made up of other cultures, I mean that our culture has been adopted by everyone in the world. This makes us feel as though our culture isnt special or unique. Say for example that every business man in the world wore a kimono, that every skyscraper was in the shape of a pagoda, that every door was a sliding one, and that everyone ate every meal with chopsticks. This would probably make a Japanese man feel as though he had no unique traditional culture.

I have noticed a great disdain for race mixing White women within the White nationalists community, bordering on insanity it. These women are victims, and they can be saved. Stop.

Jews

Unlike many White naitonalists, I am of the opinion that the majority of American and European jews are White. In my opinion the issues with jews is not their blood, but their identity. I think that if we could somehow destroy the jewish identity, then they wouldnt cause much of a problem. The problem is that Jews look White, and in many cases are White, yet they see themselves as minorities. Just like niggers, most jews are always thinking about the fact that they are jewish. The other issue is that they network. If we could somehow turn every jew blue for 24 hours, I think there would be a mass awakening, because people would be able to see plainly what is going on.

I dont pretend to understand why jews do what they do. They are enigma.

Hispanics

Hispanics are obviously a huge problem for Americans. But there are good hispanics and bad hispanics. I remember while watching hispanic television stations, the shows and even the commercials were more White than our own. They have respect for White beauty, and a good portion of hispanics are White. It is a well known fact that White hispanics make up the elite of most hispanics countries. There is good White blood worht saving in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and even Brasil.

But they are still our enemies.

East Asians

I have great respent for the East Asian races. Even if we were to go extinct they could carry something on. They are by nature very racist and could be great allies of the White race. I am not opposed at all to allies with the Northeast Asian races.

Patriotism

I hate the sight of the American flag. Modern American patriotism is an absolute joke. People pretending like they have something to be proud while White people are being murdered daily in the streets. Many veterans believe we owe them something for “protecting our way of life” or “protecting our freedom”. But im not sure what way of life they are talking about. How about we protect the White race and stop fighting for the jews. I will say this though, I myself would have rather lived in 1940’s American than Nazi Germany, and no this is not ignorance speaking, it is just my opinion. So I dont blame the veterans of any wars up until after Vietnam, because at least they had an American to be proud of and fight for.

An Explanation

To take a saying from a film, “I see all this stuff going on, and I dont see anyone doing anything about it. And it pisses me off.”. To take a saying from my favorite film, “Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society.”.

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.

Unfortunately at the time of writing I am in a great hurry and some of my best thoughts, actually many of them have been to be left out and lost forever. But I believe enough great White minds are out there already.

Please forgive any typos, I didnt have time to check it.

If this was indeed written by Dylann Roof—as it certainly seems to have been—let there be no more equivocation about his motivations.


Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

The Gawker Review Weekend Reading List [6.20.15]

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The Gawker Review Weekend Reading List [6.20.15]

The final line of Audre Lorde’s 1978 poem, “Sequelae,” reads: “I have died too many deaths that were not mine.” The horror that unfolded in Charleston, South Carolina this week brought us nine more: Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr., Ethel Lee Lance, Tywanza Sanders, Myra Thompson, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and Rev. Sharonda Singleton. Rest peacefully.


“The Charleston Murders Are Absolutely Terrorism” by Sultana Khan

When you say, ”I know” or “I understand,” and then add a “but” when it comes to tragedies like this, your point is already moot, Bill. You can empathize and you can philosophize, but you don’t know, and you don’t understand, what it possibly means to have someone in a position of privilege tell people of color that a marginalized community, which has been continuously and systematically brutalized, is not under attack from terrorists. Just as you would say, “I have 40 years of experience in the national security world” to justify writing about terrorism in all its forms, you must also acknowledge, “I am a white man, and my viewpoint is inherently different than the black community that has been affected,” when writing about divisive racial issues. And make no mistake, this is all about race. When your point is that words are important, all words must be carefully weighed and measured. You can be provocative and court charges of insensitivity, but you can’t credibly do so without acknowledging your own privilege first.

http://phasezero.gawker.com/the-charleston...

“Doggystyle” by David Drake

Frankie is incredibly prolific, particularly on his YouTube channel where he uploads rare Louisiana rap songs, hosts video countdowns and awards shows, tells personal stories, shoots commercials for artists, and celebrates artists’ birthdays. On his comprehensive blogspot, he writes track-by-track reviews of Baton Rouge mixtapes, an archive he’s kept since 2008. His YouTube and DatPiff accounts host his own productions, as well as songs and mixtapes by artists who would otherwise be invisible. He’s curated nearly 20 of his own Baton Rouge compilations, filled with songs that are difficult or impossible to find anywhere else. Although this massive archive has found a devoted following, that following is not very large. To use the terminology of the digital media business, Frankie’s content is not particularly “scalable.” In many ways, it’s an anachronism from the time before social media, an era when the Internet—and the people who lived most of their lives on it—seemed, well, a little weird. And there’s no doubt Frankie fits that description. Frankie never chased paid work from publications, nor sought approval from his blogging peers—in fact, he actively ignored most hip hop websites, self-segregating from the “rap Internet.” Instead, he wrote for a very specific readership: the rappers themselves, many of whom weren’t used to press attention of any kind. Artists including Lil Mista, Savage, Quikkdraw, and DJ B-Real acknowledged Frankie’s passion by reaching out in return. Frankie treasures a hand-written letter Young Ready once mailed him. His enthusiasm for these connections was real.

http://massappeal.com/doggystyle-fra...

“The Death Treatment” by Rachel Aviv

In the past five years, the number of euthanasia and assisted-suicide deaths in the Netherlands has doubled, and in Belgium it has increased by more than a hundred and fifty per cent. Although most of the Belgian patients had cancer, people have also been euthanized because they had autism, anorexia, borderline personality disorder, chronic-fatigue syndrome, partial paralysis, blindness coupled with deafness, and manic depression. In 2013, Wim Distelmans euthanized a forty-four-year-old transgender man, Nathan Verhelst, because Verhelst was devastated by the failure of his sex-change surgeries; he said that he felt like a monster when he looked in the mirror. “Farewell, everybody,” Verhelst said from his hospital bed, seconds before receiving a lethal injection.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/...

“Dear Spoon, Thanks For Playing ‘Metal Detektor’ Last Night. Love, Kelly” by Kelly Conaboy

Near the end of last night’s Spoon concert at Brooklyn’s the Wick, a young woman tapped me on the shoulder. “What was the old song they just played?” she asked. “I thought maybe ‘Car Radio’?” No, I told her. The song wasn’t “Car Radio,” a great song from the band’s 1998 release A Series Of Sneaks. It was “Metal Detektor,” the best song from the band’s 1998 release A Series Of Sneaks and, in fact, the best song they have ever written. Spoon’s best song: “Metal Detektor.” A song they pretty much never play, as far as I know: “Metal Detektor.” My favorite song of all time: “Metal Detektor.” I can’t believe it. She can’t believe it. “Metal Detektor”!

http://www.stereogum.com/1809878/dear-s...

“The Members-Only Penthouse for Millennials” by Brendan O’Connor

Soon enough, Magnises outgrew the townhouse—the organization currently boasts nearly seven thousand members. (Most of those are in New York, McFarland said; there are around five hundred in D.C.) Magnises has access to the penthouse at the Hotel on Rivington from 12 P.M. to 9 P.M. almost every day: In the afternoons, it functions as a kind of co-working space; at night, it’s used for events and networking. “We have people that come in, they’re in the Lower East Side, they want to use the Wi-Fi, shoot a couple emails. We have people that come and have full-on meetings, that come do interviews. We have people that come to impress clients. We have people that are just coming because they’re new to New York—we have a lot of internationals that are new to New York and want to meet new friends,” Howell said. “So we have sort of the full mix, which is also what makes it so exciting. We’re not just a business networking organization, and we’re not just a social club. We cover the full spectrum.”

http://www.theawl.com/2015/06/the-me...

“‘Shit’s Gonna Hit the Fan’: Talking to a Billionaire About Class War” by Hamilton Nolan

Raising the minimum wage a lot across the board would make a big difference. It’s not the only thing, but it’s an indispensable part of solving the problem. Raising the minimum wage is very efficient. Everybody’s on the same playing field, it’s a very simple rule, it doesn’t require a lot of administration, you don’t have to negotiate anything. It just is what it is. And Americans today spend a minimum of $150 billion a year in tax subsidies that go to people not who don’t have jobs, but who have jobs, and are in poverty. There is no earthly reason why Walmart and McDonald’s and Walgreens and these other giant, profitable institutions should have one worker in need of public assistance. It’s ridiculous. And it’s not just getting them out from under the need for public assistance; it’s like, that’s what drives the economy! The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn’t going out to eat at restaurants. They’re not taking piano lessons. They’re not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They’re not sending mom flowers on Mother’s day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they’re doing all of those things. And all of a sudden, not just business thrives, but small business thrives.

http://gawker.com/shits-gonna-hi...

“How to Talk About Suicide on Father’s Day” by Ashley Feinberg

In every instance, from dad bod to death, the ‘likes’ will pour in. A disembodied click denoting everything from “lol” and “hot dad” to “cute pic” and “I miss him, too.” But whatever your social media dad-sharing platform of choice, you’re probably not going to see any smiling snapshots of a father who shot himself.

Just now, even just typing those first few sentences, I’m filled with an unspeakable, almost suffocating sense of dread. How do I describe the death of my father? Did he “kill himself”? Or “take his own life”? Neither of these sound entirely truthful—and that’s why it’s been so hard to talk about the death of my dad, both now and over the last 11 years.

http://gawker.com/how-to-talk-ab...

[Image via Getty]

J. Crew Exec Reportedly Fired For Instagram Hunger Games Brag

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J. Crew Exec Reportedly Fired For Instagram Hunger Games Brag

Alejandro Rhett is out as vice president of men’s merchandising at J. Crew, Fashion Week Daily reports. Last week, it emerged that Rhett had gloated on Instagram about surviving an earlier round of firings (in which he participated!).

According to Fashion Week Daily, Rhett was fired late on Thursday. “As soon as we were made aware, the appropriate actions took place,” a company spokesperson told the New York Post on Wednesday, without elaborating.

A spokesperson for J. Crew would neither confirm not deny Rhett’s firing to Fashion Week Daily, but issued the following statement:

We do not condone this behavior in any way. Individuals’ actions do not represent the culture of our company–this is not who we are. The tough decisions we made last week were not something we took lightly. We do our best to make decisions with care & compassion for all of our associates.

In other words: never Instagram.


Image via Facebook. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

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