Gene Palmer, the New York prison guard who allegedly passed hacksaw blades hidden in uncooked meat to escaped killers Richard Matt and David Sweat, has been arrested, CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz reports. On Tuesday, Palmer’s attorney said his client was unaware “there was something in the meat.”

President Obama showed little patience for a protester who interrupted him at a White House Pride Month reception on Wednesday, immediately waving a finger and scolding, “Nonononononononono, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Listen, you’re in my house,” said the president to cheers and applause. “You’re not gonna get a good response from interrupting me like this.”

“Shame on you,” Obama added before having the heckler removed by White House personnel.

LGBT advocacy organizations later identified the protester as undocumented trans activist Jennicet Gutiérrez, who seeks the immediate release of transgender immigration detainees.

“I am outraged at the lack of leadership Obama demonstrated,” Gutiérrez said afterward in a statement. “He had no concern for the way LBGTQ detainees are suffering.”

[Image via C-SPAN]

Today, PBS concluded its internal review of slave owner-omitting genealogy series Finding Your Roots, determining the show’s producers violated PBS standards by allowing Ben Affleck to influence editorial decisions. PBS has now postponed the series until “corrective measures” are implemented.

On Tuesday, a California man was arrested on hate crimes charges after allegedly yelling homophobic slurs and attacking three men with a knife for wearing skinny jeans, the L.A. Times reports.

According to victim Blake Abbey, the men were walking home Sunday night when the suspect and another man called them “faggots for wearing tight jeans.” The suspect, later identified by Sacramento police as 25-year-old Timothy Brownell, then attacked Abbey and two of his friends with a knife, stabbing them several times.

“We did nothing to provoke them,” Abbey later wrote on Facebook. “My arm was completely mangled by a 7-8 inch Rambo knife.”

On Monday, the Sacramento Police Department said in a statement it has “zero tolerance for these crimes.”

Supporters of the victims have now organized an “I Wear Skinny Jeans” benefit concert for Abbey and his friends.

“More details to come soon,” reads the show’s Facebook event page. “The most important detail however is.... WEAR YOUR BEST SKINNY JEANS.”

[Image via Sacramento Police Department]

Donald Trump, to be fair, says a lot of idiot things. And for the most part, people just ignore him until he tires himself out, as you might a child having a tantrum. But it looks like his idiot comments about drug-addicted-rapist Mexicans rightfully offended some people—Univision says they’re not going to air the Miss USA beauty pageant as long as he’s involved.

Trump, who is a part-owner of the pageant, recently inked a lucrative five-year deal with Univision to air and co-produce both the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

But then he opened his mouth. Via CNN:

Last week, in his speech announcing a run for president, Trump deplored immigrants from Mexico who “have lots of problems” and are “bringing those problems to us.”

“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” he said, adding, “and some, I assume, are good people.

The pageant was set to air July 12, but Univision CEO Randy Falco says that’s definitely not happening.

“At Univision, we see first-hand the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country,” the company said. “We will not be airing the Miss USA pageant on July 12 or working on any other projects tied to the Trump Organization.”

Trump, who in some alternate universe could technically, one presumes accidentally, win a primary to become president of our country, says the whole thing is a government plot.

Univision wants to back out of signed @MissUniverse contract because I exposed the terrible trade deals that the U.S. makes with Mexico.

June 25, 2015

Mexican gov doesn't want me talking about terrible border situation & horrible trade deals. Forcing Univision to get me to stop- no way!

June 25, 2015

“Forcing Univision to get me to stop—no way!”

As if anyone thought Donald Trump would ever stop being an idiot.

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

I was never attracted to pregnant women—until I got pregnant myself.

The first time that fulfilling this very particular fantasy came within reach, it was summertime, and I was in a community center meeting room. There was this woman, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her: she was in her early 30s, with dark brown hair and a bright smile. She radiated friendliness, and she was hot. We made eye contact; I found myself sitting by her. On her other side was her ex-girlfriend and current best friend, and the three of us made chit-chat while we waited for class to begin.

Oh, and the class was “Preparing for Childbirth.” My new crush was seven months pregnant, and I was five.

We were both bi, both single mothers-to-be. She had gotten pregnant by chance, during a brief fling with a male lover. I had gotten pregnant by choice, using a sperm donor to conceive after breaking up with my ex-wife at age 37 and hearing the loud tick of my biological clock. I had decided, right around that breakup, that I was done waiting for “the one.” I was the one! I knew single motherhood would be challenging, but I also knew that continuing to wait—and taking the chance of not finding a co-parent or romantic partner in time to have a baby—would leave me with permanent regret.

I’ve always been bi, and I’ve had relationships over the years with men and women; I didn’t expect my own pregnancy to open up this sudden, powerful corner of attraction, but it did. I was lucky enough to have a very healthy, mild pregnancy, with no morning sickness or complications. I was enjoying my body like crazy, and felt sexier than ever.

And, pregnant, I couldn’t stop noticing how hot other pregnant women were. They were curvy, they exuded fierce strength, they seemed irresistible to me. I wanted to be with one. I fantasized about us pressing those new curves up against each other, exploring our now bigger (and much more sensitive) breasts, and just generally seeing how much fun two pregnant bodies could share.

Unfortunately for my newfound attraction, most pregnant women are straight, and also, most pregnant women are in relationships. To meet a woman who was pregnant and into other women and single was the trifecta and the Holy Grail. In that childbirth class, I found myself highly distracted thinking about the possibilities.

But of course, soon I was reminded of one of the underlying reasons I found pregnancy so sexy: it’s incredibly difficult. That fierce strength that comes with it is won at a great cost. As I got to know my foxy new friend from childbirth class, I realized she was having a rough time of it. We talked more and more over the next few classes, and as I tried to gather the courage to ask her out (or, at least, invite her over for a little pregnant-on-pregnant make-out session—those second-trimester hormones were really running the show!), I found out that she felt sick a lot of the time, and felt sexy none of the time. She hadn’t been on a date her whole pregnancy.

I dropped a hint that, if she wanted to change that, I would be there for her. She dropped a hint back that it wasn’t going to happen. I don’t know if it was that the attraction wasn’t mutual, or the general preggo blahs, or both—either way, I respected the boundary and switched my focus from lusting after her to just being a friend. I filed away my pregnant-on-pregnant fantasy, and I’m glad I did. We are friends to this day, three years later, and our kids are now friends, too.

But there was still a vague possibility for the future. My dream had long been to have two children; I’d always loved the idea of creating a set of siblings, and I loved motherhood. With two, I decided, my family would be complete.

So then, late last year, I got pregnant again. My pregnant-on-pregnant fantasy was still on my mind from last time—it was one of the few things I’ve ever fantasized about but haven’t tried.

So I posted an ad on Craigslist, in the women-seeking-women area, but I only heard from men. Surprise! If you’ve ever posted in WSW, you have probably had the same experience. And of course, I’m also into men, but none of the ones emailing me were pregnant! Then I put a profile on OkCupid, with a filter to keep out the guys; but my only responses came from non-pregnant women who thought that what I was doing was cool. Thanks, sisters—but aren’t any of you knocked up? Finally, I told a few non-pregnant female friends about my fantasy, all of whom were supportive, but didn’t know any single/available lady-loving preggos to set me up with. One friend even offered to find and hire for me a pregnant sex worker, but we never got around to making that a reality.

But then, close to the end of my pregnancy, I again met someone who was pregnant and super cute. She had a relaxed, sexy vibe, and I knew from the beginning that, although she wasn’t single, she was in an open relationship with her husband. And, I found out, she was at least a tiny bit into women. However, when I floated the idea—with only about seven weeks left in my pregnancy—she said she takes a while to get to know people and that it wouldn’t work out.

I have six weeks left now, and I’m starting to get the feeling that this is a fantasy that will stay just that. I don’t plan to get pregnant again, so my window of opportunity for pregnant-on-pregnant loving will soon shut. But, on the positive side—and especially during my first pregnancy—I realized that being single, even as a pregnant woman, does not mean being alone. Pregnant, enormous, I was never hurting for dates or even flirtation. It turns out that there are many people who either don’t mind if a single woman is pregnant, or who find it sexy, like I do. One time, I even got hit on by a woman in the restroom of an electronics store whose name rhymes with Nice Try. Sadly for her, she wasn’t my type—she didn’t appear to be pregnant at all!

Andrea Goldstein is a pseudonym for an anonymous preggo looking for a PILF.

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Did you ever wonder if you could jump all the way across the subway tracks?

Unless you’re in better shape than this guy, you can’t.

[Via DNA Info. You should try though.]

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Pranna, Madison Avenue’s opulent palace where the mimosas flow like waterfalls (and so does the vomit), may not be long for this world. Despite making small changes to appease its long-suffering neighbors, the brunch spot that gave us the fake heir to “half of fucking Manhattan” had its application for a new liquor license aggressively rejected by the community board Wednesday night.

Community Board 5’s vote against Pranna owners Rajiv and Payal Sharma was unanimous, Gothamist reports, with both neighborhood residents and board members relishing the opportunity to put an end to the weekly tableau of daydrinkers pausing to throw up on the sidewalk as they stumble toward cabs back to Jersey.

The license would have allowed Pranna to rebrand, replacing the problematic current restaurant with a tamer three-story establishment made up of a restaurant called Ziya and a basement lounge called Indikaya. Although the owners made lavish promises like closing at 1 a.m. and getting rid of DJs and makeshift dancefloors, the board was unmoved.

“We issue four or five denials a year at most. If any application deserves a flat denial, that’s this one,” one board member said to applause, according to Gothamist.

Without liquor licenses, Ziya and Indikaya aren’t going to happen. They could still be granted approval by the State Liquor Authority, but that seems unlikely after this week’s unanimous hand in the face from Community Board 5.

Pranna is licensed through the end of September, having miraculously secured a renewal last year after promising to reduce its bottomless brunch to a five-drink maximum. (The change didn’t help.)

It will continue to operate in its current form until then, but the writing seems to be on the wall.

“Pranna has got to go. Its time is long past due to go, and it’s on its way out,” the Sharmas’ lawyer said at the board meeting, according to Gothamist.

The very last Clarkson, Hammond & May edition of Top Gear will be broadcast this Sunday and sniffpetrol – by day, mild mannered former Top Gear script editor Richard Porter – explains how they used to put the show together and what it was like to be at the cutting edge of cocking about.

There we go then. The sun has set on what I imagine we will one day call Old New Top Gear.

Now we sit patiently with seatbelts fastened and backrests in the upright position, awaiting developments from New New Top Gear / The Jeremy Clarkson Car Hour / James May’s Amphitheatre Of Cheese.

Whatever happens next, it’s going to be quite different from what I like to think scholars will one day call Top Gear Classic. It might be made in quite a different way too. I don’t know. I only know the way we used to make the show, which was with a mixture of sweat, panic, disagreement and potato snacks.

On the programme I hope historians will soon refer to as Top Gear – Original Taste the most important thing for any given item was, unsurprisingly, the idea. If we’re talking about a track test, that idea was always pretty simple; is it an interesting car and can we say moderately entertaining things about it while slithering around a runway for six to eight minutes?

Ideas for the big, three presenter films were rather more difficult. Coming up with suggestions wasn’t the hard part, it was the process that followed in which the idea would be prodded and dismantled and subjected to the same line of questioning it might receive from a four-year-old; Why? Why? No really, why? Why were we going there? Why were we taking those cars? Why were we doing this at all?

For those items in which we bought old rotboxes or built something of our own, it was important to have some headline question we were answering or some logical problem we were setting out to solve. Can you buy a car for £100 or less? Can you build your own amphibious car? Can we alleviate travel chaos brought on by snow using machines that normally sit idle in winter?

You needed the question for the studio introduction to give some line of logic, some small reason why we were craving your attention for the next half an hour or so. Once the item was up and running you could drift away from that original point, though I believe the best Top Gear stories never forgot it.

If the idea couldn’t pass muster in the office, in particular at the hands of chief scrutineer Clarkson who worried about this stuff more than anyone on the team, then it didn’t happen. Case in point, we once had this notion that we would re-invent the fire engine. Why were we doing that? Because it seemed like they were too big and too slow and therefore took too long to get to emergencies. The solution was obvious; Top Gear would build a small, high performance fire truck.

The trouble is, if you make a fire engine smaller there’s no room on board for all the ladders, hoses and burly men it needs to do its job. So it has to be big. And then it can’t get through gaps in traffic. So you make it smaller. And then it can’t do its job. And then…

We sat in a meetings for hours debating this round in circles before concluding with heavy heart that the ideal design was a fire engine, as in the sort we already have. The whole idea was thrown in the bin. It would have been easy to have plugged on simply for the sake of seeing Richard Hammond trying to fit a massive ladder onto the roof of a tiny van, but really we’d have been doing it purely for the jokes and, much though it may have seemed otherwise, such brazen comedy chasing was never enough for Top Gear.

An idea had to be better than that and, assuming that it was strong enough to withstand being debated and dismantled in the office, the production team would then crack on with finding cars, scouting locations and doing all the things necessary to make it happen. It’s all well and good saying that, for example, you’re going to re-invent the helicopter and to do so you’re going to need four camels and an exploding gazebo in a westerly facing garden but it isn’t going to happen without the hardest working, most dedicated and talented production team in television. Fortunately, that’s what we had. Even more fortunately, I was only joking about that helicopter thing.

While the ground work was being done, the next job was to script the item. It was sometimes complained that Top Gear became ‘too scripted’ which was the internet’s way of saying too set-up, too pre-planned, too close to a cack-handed comedy sketch. In truth, all TV shows are scripted. Obviously that’s true of drama shows like Game Of Thrones because dragons are heavily unionised and won’t come out of their trailer unless everything is agreed in advance. But ‘reality’ shows are scripted too, and so are documentaries and improv and the weather report. A television programme with no script at all would be a mess. A script doesn’t have to mean every single moment is written down in advance, it can be simply a series of points that lets everyone on the crew how we’re going to start, where we’re going to go, and what we hope might happen.

For a Top Gear track test, the script might have been pretty detailed. It would have presenter words on it, maybe a few chewy metaphors, and it would attempt to pace the item by deciding which lines were voice over, which were in vision, when the car would be moving, when it would be static and so on. Yet even this could change radically on the day, especially if a car revealed new facets or the presenter simply changed their mind on something.

A three header item out in the field would be much looser. Sometimes so loose a director would read the script and slowly sigh the words, Is that it? Ideally, there’d be a studio introduction that set out the logic of the story, some attempt to structure the start, maybe a few choice gags for each presenter to attack his colleagues’ choice of cars (though they preferred to keep the really good ones to themselves and unleash them like Indiana Jones’s whip when least expected) and then a broad attempt to order the item’s activities. Even so, one of the most common words on a Top Gear script was a vague, director-baiting place holder that simply said, ‘whatever’.

The actual process for writing scripts, or at least sitting down to fill in the gaps with ‘whatever’, took several forms. Sometimes Jeremy would get a rush of blood to the head and crack on with it on his own, then email me a first draft with a simple note at the top; ‘ADD FACTS AND GAGS’. Sometimes one or more of us would go over to his flat near the Top Gear office and work on it together. Clarkson would usually drive the computer, jabbing awkwardly at the keyboard with a single rigid digit on each hand, like he was trying to CPR a rat.

His ungainly typing style disguised his immense ability as the fastest writer I’ve ever worked with, rapidly producing first draft words that were sharper, tighter and funnier than most word jockeys could manage after 20 attempts. Every so often he’d pause as he searched for a chunky analogy to illustrate a point and we’d spend a minute or two bouncing gags back and forth, trying to make each other laugh. A lot of Top Gear writing was based around men in a room trying to make each other laugh.

Eventually, the script would be in some sort of workable shape, the gold plated unicorns would have been sourced, and we’d be in a position to film the damn thing. For this we would need three film crews – one for each star car in case they got split up and all the better to shoot the three way chats while allowing plenty of editing options to cut out the waffling bits – and a large van full of snack items.

Once the item was shot, it would disappear into the edit suite where over many weeks it would be diced and sliced and finessed into the finished item over which voiceover lines would be dubbed.

During our usual on-air routine, voice overs were done on a Monday evening the week of transmission, each presenter taking their turn to go into the recording booth while the other two loafed around in the control room, saying unhelpful things over the talkback loop, writing lurid slogans on other people’s scripts and generally behaving like children. Restless, middle-aged, deliberately annoying children.

Tuesday was writing day. In advance, I’d hash together a first draft studio script, pulling together the planned intros for each film, adding some thoughts for discussions out of them, and doing the ‘housekeeping’ of adding sections like the ‘Tonight….’ menu, the Stig ‘some say’ lines and the guest introduction. Then the presenters would arrive and we’d start the process of refining, revising or completely re-writing the words during which the three of them would read my jokes and either laugh, in which case I would inwardly fist pump, or say ‘hmm, not sure about that’, in which case I would inwardly sob, though outwardly I would stand behind them at the computer and do neither of those things.

At some point in the morning we’d turn our attention to the massive slick of press releases and pictures laid out on the floor behind us and the presenters would begin reading out things and firing one-liners at each other, the best bits of which I’d attempt to write down and later type up into bullet points from which the rough shape of the news segment would emerge.

Then, once the script was deemed satisfactory, and there were enough items in the news document, we’d sit down in front of the whole production team and read through our homework. If they laughed at the jokes, we’d go home happy. If the material fell flat on its arse we’d despondently go back to the computer and keep working.

Either way, we’d fetch up at the studio the next morning and Jeremy would thunder into the crappy presenters’ room at the back of our shabby Portakabin with a dozen new script tweaks, suggestions and jokes. The rest of us might turn up on a Wednesday morning with one vague thought for something that could be improved; only Jeremy would have lain awake all night worrying over tiny details and agonising over the smallest point until he’d got it right. Top Gear might sometimes have seemed like a big, freewheeling, slobbery, shambolic mess but you’d be amazed at the attention to detail. Someone once asked me what it was like to write on the show and the only way I could explain it was to say that we could easily lose 40 minutes arguing whether ‘raspberries’ was a funnier word than ‘hat’.

On those Wednesday mornings at Dunsfold we’d spend another couple of hours having debates about such things followed by a technical rehearsal in the studio, a spot of lunch and then all hands on deck. Are the presenters dressed? Is the audience in? Are the machines recording? Then it’s show time.

Or at least, it was. Maybe one day it will be again. Who knows how Top Gear and its pattern parts replica might turn out in the future. For all concerned, I just hope the production process is something like it was on the show we might one day come to call Top Gear – The Golden Years: Disorganised, exhausting, stupid and a simply enormous amount of fun.

Illustration Sam Woolley

Contact the author at matt@jalopnik.com.

Don’t forget: You can email us tips at tips@gawker.com, call them in at 646-470-4295, send them directly to any of our writers, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system. And like us on Facebook here!

To celebrate making old episodes of Seinfeld available for streaming, Hulu created a replica of Jerry’s apartment in Manhattan. Yesterday, on day one of the exhibit, some grown child briefly broke it. This person then sent a video of the incident to Curbed, and shared the resulting article on his Facebook page with the following caption: “Hello world, it’s me. The Sein-failed guy. My inner Kramer is beaming.”

No Soup For Man Who Broke Seinfeld Door!!!

Bum...Ba Din Ding Dun POP! Ba Dun POP! Broken Door

Like Seinfeld, Man Who Broke Seinfeld Door Is Not Funny or Interesting

Man to Be Shot After Damaging Seinfeld Door We Love

Headline Contest for a Story That Seems Funny at First Glance But Is in Fact Terrible

Streaming Video Service Airs Sitcom, Yadda Yadda Yadda, Fake Door Is Now Broken

[via Curbed]

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Earlier this week, we brought you (more) stories of just how disliked the iconic guitar company Gibson is by employees and customers alike. If you work at Guitar Center, do not share this story! Or else!

The following email was sent out by a Guitar Center district manager yesterday.

From: [Guitar Center District Manager]
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:31 AM
To: [All district store managers and customer service managers]
Subject: Negative Gibson article currently on social media...
Importance: High

Team – it has been brought to my attention that there is currently a very, very negative article on gawker.com about Gibson, and also [CEO] Henry [Juszkiewicz] himself. Just to remind everyone that Gibson is one of our biggest vending partners, and any associate sharing this article could potentially violate our GC Internet policy. Let’s just avoid a potential issue, and make sure that our people understand and know our Internet policy. Thank you.

[District Manager]

The information in this email is confidential. It is intended solely for the addressee and access to this e-mail by anyone else is unauthorized.

Rock and roll.

[Photo: Flickr]

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Q: What would a joke skewering Disney Princesses look like if it were actually funny? A: [This Amy Schumer sketch.]

Schumer has spent her very strong third season mocking the impossible, twisted goals society asks women to aspire to—Always be the “cool girl.” Be fuckable forever. Look great, but do it without makeup—and it’s hard to get more impossible and twisted than the Disney Princess fantasy.

Kind of fucked up how one of the most popular dream jobs for little girls involves pumping out inbred male heirs, oppressing peasants, and doing whatever Tim Gunn tells you to. (On the other hand, at least it’s better than stripping at a bachelor party for dogs.)

[Comedy Central]

Kristin Cavallari has all kinds of advice: drink bone broth; don’t vaccinate your children; buy my book; blah, blah blah. Yesterday, she offered another bit of her trademark uninformed counsel to fantasy football players: pick her husband, Chicago Bears QB Jay Cutler, first round in the fantasy draft.

Kristin confidently issued this command in a sidewalk interview with TMZ Sports.

For those not tethered to the fantasy football world or reality in general, “pick Jay Cutler first round in your fantasy football draft” is not good advice. Here’s how some fantasy football aficionados from Gawker and Deadspin.com responded when informed of Kristin’s recommendation:

“No one will draft him in any round.”

“That’s very, very bad advice.”

“Oh, she’s wrong as hell.”

Cutler did receive one compliment:

“He’s not the worst player but picking him first in a fantasy football draft is an incredibly poor decision.”

Kind of.

The experts at FantasyPros.com currently rank Cutler 18th out of the 32 starting quarterbacks, which means they expect 17 QBs to outperform him next season. What’s more, Cutler’s ranked 23rd by fantasy players who are already prepping for next season.

He is making a lot of money, though. :)

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

A blind Los Angeles man was killed and decapitated last week—and his killer (or killers) took his head with them when their job was finished, cops say.

Robert Hollis, who was 75 years old and “80 percent blind,” was reportedly known around the neighborhood as Mr. Bojangles due to his love of music. His family says he was just starting to get used to life without sight when his head was forcibly removed. Via the LA Times:

In recent years, Hollis, a sign maker and singer, had lost his sight. Recently, he had been taking Braille classes and “getting out” more, [ex-wife] Norma Hollis said. He had just finished his first book in Braille. Though the two were divorced, they remained close, and she called him her “soul mate.”

“He was getting active again,” she said.

According to CBS, Hollis’s adult son discovered the gruesome scene last Thursday afternoon when Hollis failed to show up for a regular grocery shopping appointment.

Now, his family is trying to figure out what happened—not only is Hollis’s head missing, they say, but there was no sign anything was stolen from his home.

The city is currently offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

“We all know we are mortal,” Hollis’s friend told CBS, “But we don’t expect to be decapitated.”

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

If you ever wanted to know how Joe Manganiello—not a professional stripper, but definitely a professional actor and it’s not Opposite Day—gets his body to look so muscularly glamorous, one sneaky source in cahoots with Page Six has the scoop:

The hunky actor, 38, star spent an entire hour exercising only his abs at the South Beach, Fla., Equinox on Tuesday.

What the fuck?

An hour?

Just on his abs?

Seems like a long time to me, but it paid off. You look great, my man. I love those abs. Fuck the haters.

Image of man with delicious abs via Getty. Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.

Deadspin Cop Olympics To Open In Fairfax County, Va., Where Killer Cops Go Free | Gizmodo What Is Airplane Smell? | Jezebel The Agent Who Dropped Rose McGowan Has Just Dropped Her Agency | Kotaku The New Robin Is a Black Guy. And an Asian Girl. And a White Dude. And... | Kinja Popular Posts

Michael Jackson died six years ago today. In the 2,191 days since he overdosed on medicine administered to him by his weird and gross personal doctor Conrad Murray, Jackson has, in death, generated an almost unimaginable amount of money for various corporations, creditors and his reptile-loving children.

According to TMZ, Jackson’s estate has grossed $2 billion since his death, thanks to the film This Is It, the Cirque Du Soleil show Michael Jackson: The Immortal World and things like album sales, merchandise and... whatever else it is people buy with Michael Jackson’s face on it.

But, as TMZ explains, not all, or really any, of that $2 billion is profit. Here is their breakdown of Jackson’s estate’s finances:

After expenses, that $2 bil gets whittled down to around $800 million — which is a very good return.

But the $800 mil gets significantly cut by taxes ... we’re told to around $450 mil.

MJ’s debts at the time of his death were around $500 million, so just on those 2 numbers the estate approaches being in the black.

But there are other ventures, like Sony, where the estate generates a lot of cash.

So, of the alleged $2 billion earned by Michael Jackson as he moonwalks across the sky during a thunderstorm, all of it was spent paying off debts from back when he was still alive.

But—believe it or not!—hope is not lost for Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, young son “Blanket” aka Bigi (??), and large adult son, Prince:

As for Michael’s kids, there’s a trust where millions gets distributed as they get older.

Our sources familiar with the financials tell TMZ ... if the estate were completely liquidated today, each kid would get around $100 million.

That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of reptiles. But how many reptiles?

According to Reptiles Magazine—America’s foremost journalistic source on reptiles, I’m just going to assume—a Colombian boa constrictor can cost something like $200 in retail, or up to $5,000 for a “designer morph.” (Am I talk about a cartoon species now? I have no idea.) Meanwhile, a green anaconda, according to my homepage website backwaterreptiles.com, goes for $400. But a Colombian tegu lizard will set you back only $50.

Point is, if Prince wants to lather himself in reptiles—and it certainly seems like he does—then the only limit is the same sky upon which his father currently glides. You want 250,000 snakes and lizards? You got it, my man. You got it.

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

A slow motion disaster will continue playing out in the western United States this weekend as the same weather pattern that kept the west dangerously hot and dry this past winter is back to roast it over an open fire beginning this weekend. Some locations will see highs in the 100s through the middle of next week.

The worst of the heat will go down in the valleys of the Intermountain West, with cities like Boise, Spokane, and Salt Lake City getting ready to see several days with high temperatures at and often well above 100°F during the worst of it. Here’s a signature Terrible Graphic From The Vane showing forecast highs from the National Weather Service over the next six days:

The highs in Boise and Spokane on Saturday and Sunday, as well as the highs in Kennewick on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all break daily high temperature records at each of the city’s airports. Records go back to 1940 in Boise, 1945 in Kennewick, and 1881 (!) in Spokane.

Some good news is that this will be a relatively dry heat. Dew points outside of desert areas will hover in the 40s and 50s for the duration of the heat wave. It’s not going to be skin-cracking dry, but the humidity isn’t going to be too much of an issue. Lower dew points makes the heat more tolerable—sweat evaporates from your skin more efficiently, allowing you to cool down easier than you would on an equally hot but muggy day in Orlando. The heat will be dangerous if you’re outside for too long without shade or plenty of water, sure, but it’s not going to be that stifling, choking heat you’d experience in the southeast.

While lower moisture is comfortable to us humans, it’s not always good news for our surroundings. Heat waves bring about the risk for wildfires, especially since much of the west is mired in such a deep drought. These elevated dew points will hopefully—hopefully—help stave off any widespread fire issues.

Low humidity, high heat, gusty winds, and parched land can set the stage for nasty wildfires, which has been something that we’ve been warning residents would happen for months, now. Numerous fires are already burning across the western United States and Canada, and the heat wave won’t help conditions.

The Storm Prediction Center—which also issues fire weather outlooks—doesn’t expect sufficiently low humidity levels to coincide with gusty winds in this region through the beginning of next week, which means that fire weather conditions aren’t favorable for the land to combust like the head of a match. Some fires are still possible, especially in areas that see thunderstorms, so if you live in a vulnerable area, keep an eye out in case you have to get out of Dodge in a hurry.

We’re still witnessing a slow motion disaster in that hot, mostly calm weather prevents the region from seeing any meaningful precipitation, which will only serve to worsen the drought and lead to the potential for more explosive wildfires as we head deeper into the summer.

Our upcoming pattern is a throwback to last winter, where we had a stubborn jet stream that produced an enormous ridge over the western half of North America while keeping the eastern half of the continent under the influence of a series of troughs. This pattern was responsible for both the West Coast staying extremely warm and dry for the duration of the season, while areas east of the Rockies saw one blast of bitterly cold weather after another, followed by the occasional foot or two of snow (or just a li’l bit more in Boston’s case).

The seed that will sprout the heat wave is already in place over the Pacific Northwest, and it will grow into a monster ridge/trough pattern over North America that looks like something you’d see in a meteorology textbook. Here’s a snapshot of the ridge/trough at the 500 millibar level (about 18,000 feet, give or take a few thousand) for this Sunday, according to the GFS model.

That large ridge over the western half of the continent isn’t the only player in the game. A trough in the east will allow the heat wave that’s baked the southeastern United States for the past two weeks to finally break. Today likely marks the end of the 12-day streak where the high temperature hit 97°F or warmer in Florence, South Carolina, falling three days shy of the city’s all-time excessive heat streak of 15 days set back in July 1993. Temperatures will cool off considerably the farther north you go—highs in the 60s in the Northeast sound good—but it mostly marks a return to seasonable ick rather than any sort of meaningful relief.

This pattern will likely stick around through the beginning of July, keeping the west abnormally warm and the east at or just slightly below normal (normal still being hot, of course).

[Images: author, Tropical Tidbits]

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Among the chilling descriptors used to describe Genene Jones during her headline-grabbing 1985 trial were “Baby-Killing Nurse” and “Angel of Death.” Convicted of one infant’s death, she was suspected of causing 40 or more babies to die on her watch. And thanks to a legal quirk, she may soon be free.

In the 1980s, the Jones saga horrified parents across America. She was a pediatric nurse who worked at facilities in San Antonio and Kerrville, Texas, from 1971 to 1984. When it became apparent that a disproportionately high number of babies was mysteriously dying on her shift in San Antonio, she resigned rather than accept an assignment that didn’t involve caring for sick infants. Problem solved, everyone thought. But that wasn’t the case.

After she took a new job in a pediatric clinic in nearby Kerrville, seven children suffered seizures in two months. It was odd coincidence, but not enough to arouse suspicion, until 1982, when an otherwise healthy 15-month-old named Chelsea McClellan died after being brought into the clinic for routine immunizations. In 2013, Chelsea’s mother recalled the horror of that day to CNN:

“[Jones] gave her her first shot in her left thigh and she immediately started gasping for air,” said Petti McClellan-Wiese. “Gave her another one, and she immediately just went limp and quit breathing.”

In the chaos of rushing Chelsea from the clinic to the hospital, Jones somehow slipped into the ambulance and gave the little girl a third shot.

McClellan-Wiese would learn later that the nurse had injected her daughter with a drug called Succinylcholine, which causes muscle relaxation and short term paralysis. It stopped Chelsea’s heart.

It would have been unimaginably stomach-turning enough if Jones’ motivation was simply an uncontrollable urge to kill babies. But she had a deeper desire driving her: making the children just sick enough for her to rush in, “play God,” and save them. She wanted attention, and she wanted everyone to view her as a hero.

There was a big, obvious flaw in this plan, because many of her victims could not be revived from the high levels of drugs Jones was recklessly injecting into their tiny bodies. She was convicted in 1985 for both Chelsea’s death and the attempted murder of another infant, but there was much speculation that she had done way more damage in her nursing career. Fearing lawsuits, bad publicity, and worse, at least one hospital where she worked shredded the records of her time there. Jones had been sentenced to 99 years in prison, so what was the point of putting any institutional reputations at risk?

Actually, those records would have come in handy right about now, thanks to a legal wrinkle that will free Jones, who’s been denied parole over the years, in 2018. She will be 67 years old. The fact that she’s reportedly in poor health hasn’t slowed the crusade to keep her behind bars.

“She’s probably going to be the first serial killer in this country’s history to be legally released,” crime-victim advocate Andy Kahan told Houston’s KHOU-TV. In 2013, CNN described the reason for Jones’ impending release as “an old Texas law designed to prevent prison overcrowding:”

The Mandatory Release law allows inmates convicted of violent crimes between 1977 and 1987 to be automatically released if their “good behavior” credit plus their time served equals their sentence. The law was changed in 1987 to exclude violent criminals, but it isn’t retroactive.

So now McClellan-Wiese and Andy Kahan, a victim’s advocate for the city of Houston, are desperately trying to find other mothers whose babies may also have been killed by Jones.

A new conviction could keep her locked up.

There’s a legal precedent for this in Texas; in 2006, a confessed serial killer named Coral Eugene Watts was convicted of additional murders on the eve of his release in 2006. The new sentence was enough to keep him imprisoned until his death from cancer in 2007.

The cold-case pursuit had a champion in Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, who in 2014 told a San Antonio TV station “This woman never needs to get out of prison and if she’s fixin’ to die, then she ought to do it in prison.” And though Reed (a Republican) lost her bid for re-election not long after that interview, the new DA (a Democrat named Nico LaHood) shares her point of view:

“I believe that [Jones] should pass on in prison,” LaHood told KSAT. “This is just and should happen—especially for the victims’ families that still have to live with this and have lived without their loved ones all this time.”

Just last month, LaHood gave an interview in which he explained that he was still on the case:

LaHood says when he took office in January he assigned the Jones case to his Special Crimes Unit.

He encourages any parents who think their child fell victim to Jones to call his office.

“The politics doesn’t motivate me,” says LaHood. “The attention, the media doesn’t motivate me. The fact that if this woman is responsible for taking someone’s treasure—meaning their child—away from them, I want to do everything within the law and ethics to hold her accountable and keep her behind bars.”

Top image: Genene Jones in January 1984 (AP Photo)

Lower image: Jones (center) in February 1984 (AP Photo/Ted Powers)