Morgan Freeman’s step-granddaughter E’dena Hines, 33, whose grandmother was the actor’s first wife, was stabbed to death early Sunday morning in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that, when they arrived at W. 162nd St. near St. Nicholas Avenue, police found a man standing over her body, screaming. Hines was taken to Harlem Hospital. There, she was pronounced dead.

The New York Daily News reports that the man found standing over Hines body was her current boyfriend, and the Post reported that he was her ex-boyfriend. He was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. The knife used to stab her was recovered at the scene.

In 2012, Freeman and Hines issued a statements denying the veracity of rumors that they were romantically involved. (The two are not related by blood.) “These stories about me and my grandfather are not only untrue, they are also hurtful to me and my family,” Hines said.

“The recent reports of any pending marriage or romantic relationship of me to anyone are defamatory fabrications from the tabloid media designed to sell papers,” Freeman said at the time. “What is even more alarming is that these fabrications are now being picked up by the legitimate press as well.”

In a statement on Sunday, Freeman mourned Hines loss. “The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer,” he said in a statement. “Her friends and family were fortunate enough to have known what she meant as a person. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace.”

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

The sixth man to walk on the Moon says that pacifist alien visitors tried to create world peace by disabling missiles during Cold War weapons tests. Edgar Mitchell, who walked on the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, told Mirror Online in a recent interview that he believes the UFOs reported around military bases during the Cold War were on a mission to prevent a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

“My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth,” he told Mirror Online in a recent interview.

He added, “I have spoken to many Air Force officers who worked at these silos during the Cold War. They told me UFOs were frequently seen overhead and often disabled their missiles. Other officers from bases on the Pacific coast told me their [test]missiles were frequently shot down by alien spacecraft. There was a lot of activity in those days.”

Mitchell has been an outspoken believer in extraterrestrial visitors to Earth since his return from the Moon in 1971. He grew up in New Mexico, not far from Roswell or the White Sands Missile Range, where the first nuclear bombs were tested.

“White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons - and that’s what the extraterrestrials were interested in. They wanted to know about our military capabilities,” said Mitchell.

[Mirror Online]

Contact the author at k.smithstrickland@gmail.com.

Reuters reports that two small aircraft collided mid-air about 15 miles southeast of downtown San Diego on Sunday, killing at least four people and starting a two-acre brush fire.

“There are four confirmed fatalities,” Cal Fire Division Chief Nick Schuler told CNN. “There could be more.”

Authorities say the planes were attempting to land at Brown Field, a municipal airport about 1.5 miles north of the Mexican border, when they crashed into each other at around 11 a.m. From KSWB:

Cal Fire identified the planes as a twin-engine Saberliner and a single- engine Cessna 172. The death toll was originally reported as two, then three, then four, as the afternoon wore on and grisly discoveries were made.

Firefighters from San Diego, Chula Vista and Cal Fire worked on the crash aftermath and rash of brushfires. One firefighter, from Chula Vista, was taken to a hospital for treatment of heat exhaustion, Cal Fire said.

“There is (a) fairly large crash scene,” San Diego Fire Department spokesman Lee Swanson told CNN. “There is debris scattered about a quarter of a mile.”

[Image via San Diego Fire Department]

Noted Donald Trump enthusiast Donald Trump lied to a group of children yesterday during an incredible series of events that played out like the bleakest of CNN wet dream. In a video posted to Facebook, a boy points a camera at the petulant clown running for president and asks point-blank if he is Batman. Trump’s response: “I am Batman.”

The deplorable incident of deceit all started when Donald Trump decided to offer a little something extra—free helicopter rides—to the Iowa State Fair’s customary pageant of candidates. From CNN’s writeup of the event:

You could see a cow made of butter or a 711-pound Giant Atlantic Pumpkin. You could eat a bacon-wrapped rib on a stick and drink a 32-ounce Miller Lite while watching a one-man band play and sing “Mustang Sally.”...

But here in the parking lot was something else altogether: a chance to ride in a customized Sikorsky S-76B helicopter with one of the richest and most famous men in America.

At which point, Trump turned to the camera to say, “Where are the children? Get them over here.”

(Words that were presumably followed by a crack of lightning and a growing, palpable tension as the world around the precious children inexplicably dimmed.)

However, this was not enough. Trump roared once again “I love my kids. Come ‘ere.”

Finally, the children obey. “Taking their cue, nearly 50 children stood behind him on the asphalt as he answered questions about what he would do if elected president.”

Then, it was time time for two parents to willingly send their children hurtling through the sky in a small, metal box with Donald Trump. From CNN:

William (9) brought a GoPro camera to capture the experience; a clip later wound up on Facebook.

“Mr. Trump,” he said, aiming the camera at his benefactor.

“Yes,” Trump said, pulling on the lapels of his jacket.

“Are you Batman?” the boy asked.

“I am Batman,” Trump said.

Lies. Blatant, brazen lies.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

According to New York Post “police sources,” Morgan Freeman’s step-granddaughter was stabbed to death this weekend by her boyfriend, who was allegedly experiencing some sort of drug-induced psychosis.

The victim, E’dena Hines, was a 33-year-old Broadway actress who occasionally attended events and premieres with her famous step-grandfather. She was pronounced dead this weekend after a man stabbed her multiple times on a street in Washington Heights early Sunday morning. http://gawker.com/morgan-freeman...

Witnesses and at least one law enforcement officer tell the Post the culprit was Hines’ live-in boyfriend, 30-year-old actor and rapper Lamar Davenport, who was apparently attempting to perform some sort of exorcism on her.

“Get out, devils! I cast you out, devils! In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you out!” the killer yelled as he plunged a hunting knife into 33-year-old E’Dena Hines’ chest, according to George Hudacko, who witnessed the 3 a.m. attack from his apartment window in Washington Heights.

By 3 a.m., Davenport was so crazed that he continued his attack even as Hines lay lifeless on the sidewalk, one police source said.

When cops wrestled him off her, he “was still making a stabbing motion with his arm, but he had nothing in his fist — the knife was jutting out of her chest,” the police source said.

Davenport was reportedly taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. He’s since been charged with murder, the Post reports.

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

Televangelists didn’t disappear in the ‘80s—there are actually more of them than ever. They ask for private planes and piles of money from people who can’t actually afford it in exchange for vague and ephemeral promises of future prosperity and health. Fuck ‘em, says John Oliver.

According to televangelists, donations are “seeds” that God will let you harvest many times over—if you just use your faith to put $1,000 on a credit card and believe real hard, God will wipe out your debt.

Or worse: the more “seed money” you give, Oliver notes, the better your chances of being healed from cancer. Don’t go to a hospital—they’ll just give you poison. There have been cases of believers actually dying after sending thousands to televangelists instead of spending that money on medical treatment.

Oh, and all those thousands of dollars from people who don’t actually have thousands they can afford to donate? Completely legal and tax-free to the televangelists, who are registered as churches or religious nonprofit.

End result: Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, who make a living ripping off cancer victims and other people in need, have a plane and live in a $6 million (tax-free) mansion. God must really love them, ‘cause he’s blessed them with a whole lot of other people’s money. Only three of America’s 350,000 churches have been audited by the IRS over the past couple of years, and “church” is so loosely defined that anyone can become one.

So John Oliver did. Say hello to your newest bullshit TV church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. It meets every week in the Last Week Tonight studio in New York so its members can engage in their chosen form of worship: silently meditating on the nature of fraudulent churches.

This is legal.

[Last Week Tonight]

Deadspin Golf Is In A Very Good Place | Gizmodo Apollo Astronaut Says UFOs Came to Prevent Nuclear War | io9 How Much of George Miller’s 1999 Draft of Mad Max: Fury Road Made It Into the Final Movie? | Jezebel Mike Huckabee: Denying Abortion To Ten-Year-Old Rape Victim Was the Right Decision |

Over the past few months, a wave of unionization has swept across new media. On Friday, the media union movement got its first official enemy. Now writers get to find out who is a friend, and who is just a friendly-looking man with his hand in your pocket.http://gawker.com/how-progressiv...

Until now, the union movement—which thus far includes Gawker, Salon, The Guardian US, and Vice—has met with (varying degrees of) acceptance from management, though not with total affinity. At this stage, it can safely be said that the benefits of organizing have become abundantly clear to workers in our industry. Online journalists may be vain, short-sighted click whores chasing sensationalism at great detriment to the rarefied public dialogue, but even we are generally smart enough to recognize the fact that collective bargaining is the best way to protect ourselves from the predations of our beloved capitalist owners. [Disclosure: As an employee of an online media company who believes in the right of workers to join together in order to better our collective circumstances and avoid, as best we can, being crushed at will by economic powers far greater than ourselves, I am biased in favor of unions.]

The owners of the biggest online media concerns today tend to be outspoken liberals, and their editorial products reflect that. Vice, and the Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed are all generally liberal news sites. Vice’s owner, Shane Smith, voiced no opposition when his employees asked to unionize. The Huffington Post’s owner, Arianna Huffington, has not been asked yet, and has said nothing. Buzzfeed’s boss, Jonah Peretti, has not been subjected to a formal union request from his employees either. But on Friday, he voiced the opinion that a union would not be “right” for Buzzfeed. He did so with amazing doublespeak. Though unions, he said “have had a positive impact” on blue collar workplaces where labor is more “replaceable,” the opposite is true at Buzzfeed—because Buzzfeed, he said, competes for talent with tech companies like Google, and must therefore offer great pay and benefits, and a union would introduce an “adversarial” element into the worker-management relationship that is now, he implies, so favorable to Buzzfeed workers.

“I think that actually wouldn’t be very good for employees at BuzzFeed — particularly people who are writers and reporters,” Peretti said, “because the [compensation] for writers and reporters are much less favorable than [compensation] for startup companies and tech companies.”

First of all: if you are a Buzzfeed employee and you do not think you are “replaceable,” you are fooling yourself. We are all replaceable. We work in an industry in which there is a greater supply of good writers than there are well-paying writing jobs. Ask the thousands of talented and experienced newspaper reporters laid off in the past decade how non-replaceable they turned out to be. Even the most skilled and gifted writer of astounding prose is replaceable, if business reasons call for it. Listicle composers, even more so.

Second: the idea that Buzzfeed exists in some novel bubble separate and apart from the dynamics of business and capitalism and labor is false. Buzzfeed is a company that exists to make money. It employs writers and editors for that purpose. That is all you need to know. Buzzfeed has large outside investors who expect to make money on their investment. Buzzfeed has executives like Jonah Peretti who expect to be paid large and increasing amounts of money each year. These people have a great deal of leverage over what editorial employees are paid. A unionized workplace with collective bargaining rights would enable editorial employees themselves to have a larger amount of leverage over what they are paid. For this reason, management does not want a union in the workplace. This is the very oldest story in the labor relations book. The fact that Jonah Peretti is presenting this as something new just goes to show that Jonah Peretti is something very old: an anti-union owner.

Here is an accurate translation of Jonah Peretti’s statement about unions: “Compensation and working conditions at Buzzfeed now are pretty good. I like to insinuate that the writers and editors I employ are ‘tech’ employees, even though they are clearly journalists, because online media executives tend to have a fetish for defining themselves as ‘tech’ companies, because tech companies tend to have higher valuations than media companies. It would be a shame if you were to unionize and force me to change my mind about what kind of employees you are and bust you down to lowly journalism pay rates. Think hard before you force me to do something bad to you.”

His original words were very friendly. Their actual meaning is the language of abusers.

Jonah Peretti, who in his younger days wrote Marxist theory, is now a rich businessman who behaves like a rich businessman. That itself is one of history’s cliches, and it should surprise no one. But let us be clear on why he does not want his employees to organize for their own common good. The reason is financial self-interest. Unions enable workers to get a larger piece of the financial pie. Owners and investors, even very rich ones like Jonah Peretti, do not want that to happen. So they do not want unions in their companies. This is extremely simple. There is nothing more to it. In this particular way, Buzzfeed is no different from any other online media company, or newspaper, or auto assembly factory. It is a company with workers and it prefers those workers to have as little collective power as possible, because that means the company has relatively more collective power.

As of now, Buzzfeed employees have not asked to unionize. Buzzfeed employees have not even taken to Twitter to grumble about the fact that their boss took a preemptive shot at their right to unionize. And if Buzzfeed employees do not ever want to unionize, that is their right. They should not, however, be fooled by their own current pleasant workplace situation. Jonah Peretti is the head of a multibillion-dollar business with powerful investors to answer to. Jonah Peretti is not a liberal. Jonah Peretti is not your friend. Jonah Peretti is just another rich man trying to get richer at your expense.

If that rubs you the wrong way, organize.

[Photo: Getty]

Though her alleged romance with Ben Affleck has (allegedly) ended, the Afflecks’ former nanny Christine Ouzounian has not given up on love. In fact, she’s prepared to shit where she eats again: Page Six reports Ouzounian is interested in a job as The Bachelorette on the dating reality show The Bachelorette.

A “Hollywood source” tells Page Six:

The word in LA is that Christine is looking for an agent and wants a TV deal, on something like ‘The Bachelorette’ or ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ She knows she most likely can’t go back to nannying—who in LA would hire her now to take care of their kids? So she’s going to use the spotlight to build a showbiz career.

Those who can’t do, use the spotlight to build a showbiz career!!!

Per Page Six, Ouzounian is commanding the spotlight by “parading around in full hair and makeup for the paparazzi, cruising around Santa Monica, Calif., in a new, top-down $43,000 luxury Lexus, and sipping wine al fresco with friends where cameras can catch her in her full glory.”

(Lean in.)

As Ouzounian wrote in a recent caption of an Instagram photo of herself facing the paparazzi, “‘She’s just a girl and she’s on fire’ - Alicia Keys.”

Photo via Splash News. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Just after 7 p.m. local time, a bomb exploded near the Erawan shrine in downtown Bangkok. At least 18 people were reportedly killed in the blast, including four foreigners, and at least 80 more were injured.

While no one has claimed responsibility for the blast, the BBC reports that Thai officials said the bomb—reportedly attached to a motorbike—targeted foreigners visiting the shrine, which is a popular tourist destination surrounded by luxury hotels and upscale shopping in Bangkok’s central Chidlom district.

“The perpetrators intended to destroy the economy and tourism because the incident occurred in the heart of the tourism district,” Thai Defense Minister Prawit told Reuters.

At least one other bomb was found in the area and detonated by police.

Witnesses described the chaos and horror of the bombing’s aftermath to the BBC. “I went into where the shrine is, where there were lots of bodies,” one witness said. “I saw at least nine people unfortunately who looked like they had died and lots of Chinese tourists as well. I tried to administer CPR to one particular guy who was in his 40s... and he didn’t make it.”

Another witness said most of the bodies have been removed from the scene but added that “there are still pieces of human flesh strewn around the intersection; it’s really graphic.”

UPDATE 3:02 pm: According to CNN, Thai officials put the official death toll from the blast 18, with 118 people injured. Two Thai media outlets put the number of dead at 27.

Below is purported surveillance video of the blast

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

Memphis Grizzlies forward Matt Barnes is very good friends with Rihanna and, not bragging, but they’re basically dating now, Matt Barnes told TMZ recently. Uhh—no, reports Rihanna.

“Rihanna is my friend right now, so we’ll see where it goes. It just passed the crush stage a little bit,” Barnes said Sunday, in response to rumors that he and RiRi had been going on dates. (Who started these rumors? Perhaps Memphis Grizzlies forward—errm—Batt Marnes? Who can say.)

That is news to Rihanna, who responded on Instagram that she’d never even met this joker. It’s likely that she’s dating Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, something TMZ should know because they reported it on Saturday, just one day after telling Barnes’ ex-wife, Gloria Govan, that he’d been seen on “two dates” with Rihanna. Seems like the Thirty Mile Zone is trying to orchestrate a drama that, according to Rihanna, isn’t even happening.

This photo was hashtagged:

“#bishwhere #thedevilisaliar#shesnotthatintoyou #shesnotintoyouatall#shesneverevenmetyou#thisactuallyhurtmyfeelings#defamationofcharacter”

“Hahaaa wow,” Barnes reportedly responded on Instagram, but his comment was immediately buried under a flood of crying laughing emojis from amused Rihanna fans.

Sorry, Matt. Looks like you’ll have to find another VIVA Glam™ Rihanna model to date.

[photo: Getty Images]

Here is an incomplete list of the guests Taylor Swift has welcomed to the stage so far during her 1989 tour: Gigi Hadid, Lorde, Serayah McNeill from Empire, Lena Dunham, the U.S. Women’s soccer team, the girl group Little Mix, the girl group Fifth Harmony, and...Julia Roberts and Joan Baez!

Joan Baez. Yes. This very real and insane cameo prompted writer Lara Marie Schoenhals to imagine which famous women Taylor will befriend onstage next. The resulting video “PLEASE WELCOME TO THE STAGE...” is a delightfully horrifying window into the mind of a deranged pop star who will stop at nothing to be the most fun, feminist, female friend in history. We love it.

H/t Pop Crush. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Josh Ostrovsky, a.k.a. “The Fat Jew,” has turned a single Instagram account into an online comedy career. But that entire career is based on ripping off other people’s jokes.

Last week, the Hollywood Reporter said Hollywood talent agency CAA had signed Ostrovsky, putting the social media screenshot clown alongside the likes of Will Smith and Tom Hanks:

Ostrovsky, 30, has parlayed social media fame — he has more than 5.6 million followers on his Instagram account, @TheFatJewish — into a full-fledged entertainment career. In July he signed a modeling contract with One Management Agency; he recently launched wine brand White Girl Rosé and will publish his first book, Money Pizza Respect with Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, later this year.

All of this is premised on his Instagram account, which provides a daily stream of funny-ish text and image-based “meme images” in the most generic sense. It’s fine, everyone likes memes, sure. But Ostrovsky’s account is based almost exclusively on jokes that he copied and pasted from other people, without any credit or compensation. It’s bad enough to try to convert yourself into a social media personality—doing it while actually being talentless is even more galling. For years, Ostrovsky has been shitting on the very internet community that’s made him money.

Only recently, after years of obviously ripping off large swaths of the internet, have people started to publicly accuse Ostrovsky, including many prominent, not-plagiarist comedians (Splitsider reports Comedy Central has canceled a TV deal with Ostrovsky).

Most of us here know @fatjew is shit, but your FB friends might not. Help them. I wrote this, use or write your own! pic.twitter.com/FFgPpiEtVC

August 15, 2015

Here’s how easy it is to catch Josh Ostrovsky stealing from people.

Click on any of his Instagram uploads:

Type the text that appears in the image into Google:

Find somewhere that posted it months, if not years before it appeared on @TheFatJewish:

Look at how easy it is:

In January, New York copywriter Andy Verderosa wrote a post about Ostrovsky and “FuckJerry,” another hugely popular, theft-based Instagram account:

The real problem with Fat Jew and Fuck Jerry, from an ethical standpoint, is that there is money to be made in their curation and re-dissemination of internet content. It’s in the second graph of the Times feature on the Fat Jew: “It is his comedic alter ego, his Instagram persona and, if he has his way, his ticket to wealth and mainstream media success.” Billboard’s article on him claims he gets paid $2,500 to feature brands in his photos or attend their events. This isn’t about Internet people getting paid. It’s about making a profit from other people’s content. The internet is still the wild west when it comes to assigning credit to original material. Because we do not make money from this blog, we don’t worry much about crediting photos, for example. Now that the Fat Jew and FuckJerry have become cultural icons, it’s time we stop allowing them to profit from other people’s material.

Comedian Davon Magwood has also written an “open letter” to Ostrovsky, outlining the ways in which he’s a fraud:

If it’s my stuff you’re posting, and if you give me credit, then I get traffic to my site, maybe that traffic goes to my comedy album and then I get paid for my work! You make money from the traffic you generate and guess what, I’d also would like to be paid and credited for the traffic that I’ve generated. I shouldn’t have to asked to be credit for my work, neither should other comedians or clever social media people. You should assume that If I’m posting online that I want credit for whatever you share. Twitter has this neat thing called “ReTweet” where you share what I’ve tweeted or you can tag me in a post.

I’m not producing shit so you can make more money off of my work, no one is. If you want to post other peoples stuff, go right on ahead, just make sure you don’t crop out their twitter handles. I have a girlfriend-with-fetus to clothe and feed.

The owner of @BrownCardigan, an Australian humor account on Instagram, wrote to me with his experience getting ripped off:

If you ever want to see who the original author of any tweet you can pretty much google the exact tweet word for word, grammar exact and you’ll see the time stamp of the first person to tweet it. That’s no secret but, to people like Fuck Jerry/ Fat Jerry that doesn’t matter too much.

They both do the same thing on Reddit/Tumblr, if a post has not many views or notes on it, they’re rip that off from their own twitter accounts and screenshot it/gram it as their own.

So did the tremendously funny Twitter parodist and photoshop wiz @Seinfeld2000, himself a frequent victim of screenshot theft:

The individual who calls himself “Fat Jew” has reposted a few of my photoshops without credit since 2013. i found out because the nice people who follow me will send me messages or tag me in them when it happens. After a campaign of sending him nasty emails and spamming the comments of whichever photoshop he stole, he started to credit me. But until then it was kind of a distressing experience to spend a couple hours making an image and then have this asshole breeze through and fill up his shopping cart with my work at get all this attention for it with zero effort. But its cool that instagram recognized hes a shameless plagiarist and deleted his account. Oh wait no they didnt and now he has a radio show on Apple. its unfortunate that major corporations have been complicit in the rise of this piece of shit

And that’s the problem: not Ostrovsky’s theft and plagiarism per se, which are as endemic on the web as anime porn and MP3s, but exploiting smaller players to enrich himself and create a “personal brand” (are there any two more toxic modern words than personal brand? No) This isn’t an issue of properly crediting sources, intellectual dishonesty, or moral rights; it’s a lot simpler than that. @TheFatJewish isn’t funny. Other people on the internet are funny. But other people on the internet aren’t getting signed to CAA.

Ostrovsky’s PR team (!) declined to let him speak with me for this article.

Photo: Getty

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

If it’s August, it’s another issue of the Old Farmer’s Almanac that sends the internet’s collective mind into a tizzy. The much vaunted annual publication is famous for “accurately” predicting the weather (or so says your Aunt Erma), but it’s basically the print version of a psychic reading on a 1-900 number.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is to meteorology what astrology is to astronomy. You know how you just can’t shake that confused, frustrated feeling when Mercury is in retrograde? (Oh wait, that’s in the book, too!) The long-range forecasts put out by the Old Farmer’s Almanac are like horoscopes—they’re just vague enough (and the forecast regions are just large enough) that the predictions appear accurate when applied to any situation.

The publisher asserts that the Old Farmer’s Almanac arrives at its forecasts using a secret formula that relies on, among other things, the activity of the sun and past weather:

We derive our weather forecasts from a secret formula that was devised by the founder of this Almanac, Robert B. Thomas, in 1792. Thomas believed that weather on Earth was influenced by sunspots, which are magnetic storms on the surface of the Sun.

Over the years, we have refined and enhanced that formula with state-of-the-art technology and modern scientific calculations. We employ three scientific disciplines to make our long-range predictions: solar science, the study of sunspots and other solar activity; climatology, the study of prevailing weather patterns; and meteorology, the study of the atmosphere. We predict weather trends and events by comparing solar patterns and historical weather conditions with current solar activity.

That “secret formula” is more than likely a reliance on climatology than anything else. If it’s snowed for four out of the past five years on February 11 in New York City, they’ll call for periods of snow during that week in February for the Northeast. Instead of predicting the weather, they’re looking at what’s happened in the past and banking on the fact that history will repeat itself.

The publication’s accuracy rate is highly debatable—they claim it’s 80%—but people swear by it, for better or worse (mostly for worse). After all, it’s hard to be completely wrong when you assert that snow will fall in the northeast during winter or that thunderstorms will develop in the southeast during spring. You can forecast using climatology with some accuracy, but you’ll often be wrong because the weather is rarely average. Averages are the products of extremes. A 15°F day in January and a 65°F day in January averages out to 40°F—if you were to use climatology and predict a high of 40°F on either of those days, you’d be way off.

The proliferation of this Potemkin Forecast is compounded by the fact that news organizations breathlessly report it as a scientific forecast like the ones issued by meteorologists using computer models. To that end, it’s funny how they only run wild with it when the “forecast” is for brutally cold and snowy conditions. A more cynical person would point out that news directors and editors know full well that the forecasts in the Old Farmer’s Almanac are better suited for fortune cookies, and it’s almost like they’re writing about it anyway to trigger a knee-jerk reaction in their readers so they spread the news widely on social media. Huh.

What does this winter really hold for us? It’s simply too early to say, which is something people don’t want to hear and the reason books like the Old Farmer’s Almanac sell so well. We want instant answers. We demand impeccable accuracy from our weather forecasts while also demanding weather forecasts for time periods for which it’s nearly impossible to say anything for sure either way.

The science of meteorology has advanced to the point where short term forecasts these days are incredibly accurate. A three-day forecast today is as accurate as a one-day forecast was back in 1980s, and it’s getting better all the time. Back in 2014, the Storm Prediction Center predicted a significant tornado outbreak in the central United States six days before it unfolded.

Long-range forecasts—months, not days, in advance—put out by meteorologists are far from perfect, but they’re much better than the paperback Magic 8 Ball that sits in a rack at the end of the checkout lane. You can predict general patterns—El Niño generally brings above-average precipitation to the southern United States, for example—but what actually happens is highly dependent on individual storm systems and the whims of the jet stream. You could predict a warm, dry winter based on long-range models, but if one storm accompanied by cold air dips far enough south that a few big cities get snow one night, people will consider the long-range forecast a bust even if the winter really was warmer and drier than normal as a whole.

During an El Niño winter, the southern United States would generally expect to see cooler and wetter (not necessarily snowy) weather, while the northern half of the country would normally stay a bit warmer than normal on the whole. That doesn’t mean there won’t be cold or snow in the north, nor does it mean there won’t be warm and dry periods in the south. It’s winter. Be prepared for snow and ice no matter what you hear in August.

It’s fun to think that you know what’s going to happen months before it actually happens. The Old Farmer’s Almanac is fun to talk about, but it’s not something you want to take seriously as so many are wont to do.

[Image: AP]

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

If you enjoy The Vane (of course you do!), then you’ll love the author’s new book—The Extreme Weather Survival Manual—which is available for pre-order on Amazon and comes out on October 6.

Earlier this year, Gawker Media sued the State Department over its response to a Freedom of Information Act request we filed in 2013, in which we sought emails exchanged between reporters at 33 news outlets and Philippe Reines, the former deputy assistant secretary of state and aggressive defender of Hillary Clinton. Over two years ago, the department claimed that “no records responsive to your request were located”—a baffling assertion, given Reines’ well-documented correspondence with journalists. Late last week, however, the State Department came up with a very different answer: It had located an estimated 17,000 emails responsive to Gawker’s request.

On August 13, lawyers for the U.S. Attorney General submitted a court-ordered status report to the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in which it disclosed that State employees had somehow discovered “5.5 gigabytes of data containing 81,159 emails of varying length” that were sent or received by Reines during his government tenure. Of those emails, the attorneys added, “an estimated 17,855” were likely responsive to Gawker’s request:

The Department has conducted its preliminary review of the potentially responsive electronic documents in its possession, custody, and control from Mr. Reines’ state.gov email account (as opposed to records it received from his personal email account). The assemblage comprises approximately 5.5 gigabytes of data containing 81,159 emails of varying length. Based on a review of a portion of these emails, the Department estimates that 22% of the 81,159 emails may be responsive. Therefore, the Department believes that it will need to conduct a line- by-line review of an estimated 17,855 emails for applicable FOIA exemptions. Moreover, some of the responsive records may need to be referred to other agencies for consultation or processing.

It is not clear how the State Department managed to locate this tranche of Reines’ correspondence when it had previously asserted that the emails simply didn’t exist. These newly discovered records are from Reines’ government account, and are not related to the 20 boxes of government-business emails stored on his personal account that Reines recently handed over to the government, despite his prior claims to Gawker that his official use of non-governmental email was limited: “My personal email was the last place I wanted reporters intruding.”

Considering the number of potentially responsive emails contained in Reines’ State.gov email account, it’s hard to see the agency’s initial denial as anything other than willful incompetence—if not the conscious effort, or the result of someone else’s conscious effort, to stonewall news outlets. Either way, the precedent it establishes is pernicious: Journalists should not have to file expensive lawsuits to force the government to comply with the basic provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the same status report, the State Department intends to produce the first set of Reines’ emails on September 30, 2015—three years and six days after Gawker filed its initial request.

We’ve asked the State Department and Reines for comment and will update this post if we hear back from either.

Update, 1:46 p.m.

State Department spokesperson Alec Gerlach emails Gawker:

JK — Thanks for reaching out with the chance to comment here. The State Department does not comment on ongoing litigation though, so we will decline.

Thanks,
Alec

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

Sixteen months after a devastating car accident left him in critical condition, Tracy Morgan is returning to Saturday Night Live. The former 30 Rock star will host the October 17 episode of the sketch-comedy show, which he appeared on for seven seasons.

We’re excited to announce our first three hosts of Season 41: @MileyCyrus, @amyschumer, and @RealTracyMorgan! #SNL pic.twitter.com/cVOrHZKPBk

August 17, 2015

Morgan’s limo was struck by a Walmart truck on the New Jersey Turnpike on June 7, 2014, killing comedian James McNair and critically injuring Morgan and three others. In early June, Morgan appeared on TV for the since the accident, telling the Today Show that he doesn’t remember the actual crash.

“When I got home, it really hit me,” he said. “Every day I would just watch the accident on YouTube. One day I saw [McNair’s] funeral on YouTube, and I lost it for about a week.”http://gawker.com/tearful-tracy-...

Morgan, who suffered extensive physical and neurological injuries from the crash, sued Walmart and received an undisclosed settlement in May. The truck’s driver—who hadn’t slept in 28 hours at the time of the accident—faces charges of death by auto.

Two weeks ago, Morgan made a rare post-crash appearance, sitting front row at a Yankees-Red Sox game.

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Did Jennifer Aniston’s fake wedding dress make a fool of you this weekend? You have my sympathies. No one likes to be made a fool, and the weekend is supposed to be your time.

If Jennifer Aniston’s fake wedding dress didn’t make a fool of you this weekend—uhh, OK, genius—allow me to explain: On Sunday, an image of a blonde lady wearing a wedding gown was posted to a Facebook group, or profile, or whatever, called “Jennifer Aniston.” The image, believed to be Aniston’s dress from her recent surprise wedding (she’s fine), spread across the Internet. It wasn’t Jennifer Aniston’s profile, however, nor was it Jennifer Aniston’s dress.http://defamer.gawker.com/jennifer-anist...

Damn. Will we ever know what Jennifer Aniston’s wedding dress from her surprise wedding looked like? Maybe—but we certainly don’t know yet. To help you navigate the choppy-but-fine waters of potential Jennifer Aniston gowns, we’ve gathered up a few other wedding dresses rumored to be that of Jennifer Aniston. Be smart—don’t be fooled.

Though beautiful, these are not her gowns.

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

NOT Jennifer Aniston’s wedding gown:

Be careful out there and DON’T get fooled.

Image via Facebook, art via Kelly. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

The United States of America has a Communist Party. John Bachtell is its national chairman. We spoke to him about American politics, the mistakes of the Soviets, and communism’s “branding problem.”

Bachtell grew up in Ohio, with parents active in the civil rights and antiwar movement. He became interested in communism in college, and has been a member of the party since 1977. All the while, he’s been involved in political campaigns as well. We met him last week at the Communist Party USA’s headquarters on 23rd street in Manhattan to hear what modern American communism is all about. It’s not your daddy’s communism.

Gawker: Your involvement in electoral campaigns is mainly organizing for progressive Democrats?

John Bachtell: Yes, mainly progressive Democrats and independents at every level, whether it be city council, state rep, Senate, Presidential. I was really active in both Obama campaigns. Actually I was his precinct captain for his Senate campaign in Illinois.

Gawker: Do people ever reject your help because they don’t want the Communist Party associated with their campaigns?

JB: Not usually. I tend to be more tactical, so it doesn’t really become an issue. I don’t make it an issue—we don’t make it an issue. We’re all about coalition building in the electoral arena... It’s hard for us to run candidates that are not within the framework of either the Democratic Party, or independent politics.

Gawker: How has the party changed in the nearly 30 years you’ve been in it?

JB: I think we have gone through a lot of different changes. Unfortunately I think we’re a little smaller now than we were back in the 80s. There were huge setbacks that took place back in 1991, and that had a big impact on not only the Communist Parties around the world, socialist parties—it had a big impact on the labor movement. I don’t know that people fully appreciate the extent of that setback to mass movements. But certainly it had an impact on our party, and I’m not sure we’ve fully recovered from it. At the same time, it prompted us to embark on a very deep examination of our politics and organization, and since then we’ve been embarking on a lot of changes. We call them transformative changes that modernize the party, that make us a party of 21st century socialism, that bring us from the political margins into the political mainstream.

Gawker: And by that do you mean focusing more on coalitions with more mainstream movements on the left, or what?

JB: It entails first of all rooting ourselves in the political and economic realities of today. Our main strategic concept that we’ve been working with since 1980 is the rise of the right—the extreme right—its domination of politics in the US. That all rose with Reagan and the right wing takeover of the Republican party. And that’s been with us since then. We’ve seen it as recently as the last election cycle and everything that’s come out of that, and the domination of state governments by extreme right wing Republicans, and what they’ve been able to do on worker rights, women’s rights, voter suppression, and a whole bunch of different things. There’s a real threat to basic democratic rights as we see it. We were one of the very first organizations to sound the alarm and call for a very broad multi-class united front against the extreme right. And I think that’s been validated. Now it’s a very broadly accepted concept. But the extreme right’s not gonna be defeated without a multi-class movement that involves those sections of Wall Street that don’t go along with the Koch brothers; that also involves the labor movement, communities of color, women’s organizations, youth and students, and all the Democratic movements, immigrant rights, gay and lesbian rights, seniors, you name it. All have to be part of this. Otherwise we won’t be able to advance to any other stages of struggle in this country.

Gawker: What’s been your impression of the Obama administration, and Obama’s record?

JB: When he was first elected we thought that perhaps his presidency could be a transformative moment for the country. I think we underestimated the degree of opposition from the Republicans and sections of Wall Street and monopoly capital. They thwarted him at every turn, and there were also divisions within the Democrats as well. So it was really hard for the administration to do some of what they wanted to do. Nevertheless, we felt that he could have gone further than he did, particularly economically, but the fact is that the Republican obstruction has been full court obstruction of everything...

Now you have a shift in mass public opinion that’s gravitating on a lot of key issues in a very good direction: majorities in support of taxing the rich, in support of immigration reform, you name it. I think that is in some ways allowing the administration to bypass Congress and use executive authority to move forward.

Gawker: Is growing the party an important goal for you? Is recruiting younger people into the party important to you?

JB: I think as part of the process of building this broad people’s coalition, we see rebuilding the left—because a broad left is a necessary part of that. I think in a lot of ways the organized left is marginalized. Its voice has not been fully heard, except now through the Sanders campaign you’re seeing signs of it... but in a lot of ways the left has not been able to speak very broadly to the American people. And so I think rebuilding the left as a viable force, and also our party as a mass voice for socialism in the country, is needed to put forward much more advanced solutions.

Gawker: It does seem like in previous generations, big, organized left wing groups like yours were more popular, but they’re not as much now with the younger generation, even thought the left wing sentiment is still there. Why do you think that is?

JB: Obviously the McCarthy period had a huge impact on the left, and really isolated the left in the country in the 50s. The 60s began to bring the left from the margins back into the conversation again. But the rise of the extreme right in the 80s, which was connected in a lot of ways to a whole restructuring of capitalism and the beginning of globalization, there was an ideological component that went with it, that really once again made left ideas not viable, or worthy of public discussion. Shunted them to the side. Mass media was part of that. So there was no way to gain entry in a big way. Having said that, I think the left also did a lot to isolate itself, and in that context spoke to itself and not to broad masses. I think that we fell into that as well, even though we tried to find ways to modify our message. I don’t think we were effective enough in that. And that takes me to today, because I think in a lot of ways that’s still true: the left speaks too narrowly, to too narrow of an audience.

Gawker: Do you feel that the Communist party has a branding problem, for lack of a better term? Is the stigma that goes with being the Communist party still a stumbling block?

JB: I don’t think you can conclude anything other than that. I think we have a branding problem, and even though there’s been a decline in anti-communism in the country, I think we are still in many ways associated with the Soviet Union and with that whole era of global socialism. The early part of the 20th century. Some people may see us a foreign import, even though we’re deeply rooted in the revolutionary democratic traditions of this country. And that’s something we have to grapple with.

Gawker: You’ve written about your commitment to work with Democrats and the Democratic party. Is that just a nod to political reality? And if that’s a transitional strategy for you, what’s the long term strategy?

JB: We see the long term movement towards socialism as necessary, but it’s not inevitable. Because with global climate change and the danger of nuclear weapons humanity may not survive. So it’s really up to the will of humanity to figure out a way forward. But we do see the struggle in the United States as going through a number of stages. The current one, as I said, is to defeat the extreme right. It also overlaps with another more advanced stage of struggle, which is the struggle against monopoly corporations and the capitalist class as a whole. But we do see building a very broad majority people’s coalition—you can’t win any fundamental change big majorities. That’s what history shows us, so that’s what we’re all about.

Gawker: What do you think accounts for the success of the right, which you say you’ve been grappling with since the 80s?

JB: Well, you’re dealing with some extremely powerful forces that have unlimited resources, and they’re not only able to fund movements, but whole institutions, mass media, and so on. So they’re extremely powerful, and you can never underestimate what they’re capable of doing. And I think it’s also related to what we were talking about earlier: during the rise of the right, they were basically able to shut out the alternatives. They were able to shut out the voice of the left. So that’s why they were able to ideologically dominate political discourse in the country, and then were able to influence how people thought at the grassroots.

Now, we’re facing this long term economic stagnation in the country, and this is the new normal. Mass unemployment; huge wealth disparity, and increasingly so; the only means of economic development is through external stimulus, and so on; and declining living standards. So you have a lot of scared people. People are really scared. So a lot of people are open to easy solutions. So you start pouring in racism, and xenophobia, and homophobia, and so on—people buy it, if there’s not a counter to it. Then I think we have a problem where a lot of people, it’s easy for people to think they can get outta this thing on their own. Individualist solutions. They don’t see collective struggle. And I think that’s an important lesson we all have to learn: that any change in this country is going to be collective struggle. Masses in motion...

There’s a lot of great things that are happening. With the labor movement. Just in the last year, we’ve had an incredible conversation around the country about racism, and institutionalized racism. Black Lives Matter has played an important role. We’ve had these incredible developments around marriage equality, and gay and lesbian equality. These are really sea changes in public opinion in a lot of ways. And they harken to possibilities for the future.

Gawker: When it comes to economic inequality, do you feel your party has some special insight on that issue? What would be your (near term) prescription?

JB: There’s a lot of great ideas being put forward that we totally support, and have actually been promoting for many years. Beginning with income redistribution in the country, taxing the wealthy and corporations, eliminating all the corporate welfare subsidies, ending privatization of public services and assets. We support the idea of a financial transactions tax. We’re of course for a massive shifting of the federal budget away from military spending and pouring that money into a massive project to rebuild cities and towns all across the country, a high speed rail system from coast to coast, a transition to a sustainable economy, completely divesting off of coal, and pouring money into healing the environment. Which we feel in the short term will generate millions or tens of millions of new jobs and put people back to work much the way the WPA did. I think one of the missing elements of this campaign—although [Bernie] Sanders talks about it—is a call for a massive public works program that will put literally everybody back to work in one way or another. And I think it’s possible. But it’s only possible with income redistribution in society.

Gawker: The biggest socialist foreign policy story now would be America’s relationship with Cuba. What’s your take on it, and on the Cuban socialist experiment as a whole?

JB: I think this is a really exciting time. The normalization of relations is long overdue. It’s something that supported by the Cuban people and the majority of Americans, so I think it’s a wonderful thing. I also think it’s an exciting time for the Cubans, because of their reinventing socialism and updating their socialist model.

I think that they recognized that the current model they were working under was not doing the job, was not leading to the kind of development that was necessary, and that in fact they were losing ground in a lot of ways. And I think one of the conclusions that they drew was that the model that they had, which was based on the Soviet model—centralized planning—was not and maybe never could have been conducive to the realities that they faced there. So they had to change. The had to. While they are not giving up their objective of building socialism, they realized that they had to find ways to have a number of different forms of social property and private property. They had to find a way to open up the doors to foreign investment, either wholly or in joint form. And they had to find a way to involve a much bigger section of the Cuban people in this process. So I think the whole movement towards cooperatives is a really important development.

But also this idea that you have to have incentives. And that I think was one of the fundamental mistakes—it was a mistake for the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries that collapsed, that they leveled income, and they didn’t see the need for rewarding work. So now you have the institution of wages at different levels, even though it’s within a range. Still, you have to have that. People demanded it, and they’re responding to it. And that’s an important lesson. We see that as part of our socialism as well.

Gawker: Is there an official policy on that for the Communist Party? I think a standard American view is that communism involves both centralized planning and hyper-equality, which strikes fear in people’s hearts.

JB: We see our socialism in the United States as being very unique. At the same time we have to examine the mistakes and errors that happened, including the overcentralization and the totality of the state sector and the leveling of wages and so on. I think most would agree those were big mistakes which compounded and helped to lead to the collapse, or was a factor in the collapse of socialism. We see, at least in the foreseeable future, a market much like we see today, but a much bigger state sector, and one in which the power of corporations and Wall Street is severely limited. And that actually the big corporations and the big banks are brought under public ownership. And that we reverse privatization and expand public assets.. but at the same time, we do see a need for the range of wages depending on a person’s contribution to society or their ability to produce. They should be rewarded for that.

Gawker: Is your vision for America a sort of Scandinavian model? Or is there another model, or precedent?

JB: I don’t think so. Although obviously we see this transition taking place through the electoral arena. We see a socialist coalition being elected, one that can institute these kinds of policies, including expanding public ownership. As I said, our aim is to curb the power of the biggest corporations in the country, and the wealthiest people. I think there will be a big role for small businesses, and farmers, and even middle-sized corporations. We’re not about advocating taking people’s personal property. That’s not anything we believe in. We call it “Bill of Rights Socialism,” by the way. It’s kind of an expansion of the Bill of Rights... making the right to a job part of the Constitution. The right to a free education, free health care, free child care, access to affordable housing and mass transit. All those things should be basic rights that are enshrined in the Constitution.

Gawker: How optimistic are you that some of these things are actually going to get done, whether in the next few years or in your lifetime?

JB: I’m really optimistic for the future. But I’m also obviously very alarmed by the dangers that we face as a country, as a world, and as humanity. We don’t have a lot of time. Especially when you consider global climate change and how rapidly the potential for destabilizing whole ecosystems [is growing], and how fast humanity could be obliterated, or at least large sections of humanity. So we have to work with urgency. We have to help much larger sections of people understand the urgency of the moment. And I think people are. How quickly is another question. But that’s part of the role of movements.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

The man accused of raping an underclassman at John Kerry’s alma mater allegedly told detectives it was all a misunderstanding tied to a annual tradition known as the “Senior Salute,” wherein seniors publicly competed to sleep with the most underclassmen throughout the school year.

Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old former prefect at St. Paul’s school in New Hampshire, was charged with repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl on the roof of a campus building last summer. He’s denied having intercourse with her but allegedly told detectives it was “tradition” for seniors to keep a rolling list of sexual conquests published for all students to see—initially on a laundry room wall, and later on the internet.

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, talked openly about the tradition when he was interviewed by Concord police. On a campus where upperclassmen studiously avoid their younger peers in most settings, Labrie told a detective some students “take great pride” in having sex with younger students before they leave school.

Labrie also told the detective of a contest where boys compete to “score” with the most girls, keeping a running tally written in indelible marker on a wall behind washing machines. The school kept painting over the scoreboard so it eventually was moved online. He acknowledged to the detective he was “trying to be number one,” the detective wrote.

Labrie—an aspiring divinity student whose acceptance to Harvard was rescinded after the rape charges—allegedly told detectives he was planning on having sex with the alleged victim, and even put on a condom, but stopped “in a moment of divine inspiration.” When asked why she might lie about the encounter, he allegedly claimed it was “a ‘great source of pride for younger students’ to have sex with seniors.”

Labrie, whose rape trial began Monday, is hardly the first St. Paul’s graduate to make headlines. According to the AP, the elite prep school has also produced senators, congressmen, ambassadors, Pulitzer Prize winners, Fortune 500 CEOs and several adult Kennedys—and that’s in addition to the current secretary of state, a former FBI director, and a Nobel laureate.

Nor is it the first bad press the school’s had in recent years—there have been allegations of hazing and the mysterious 2004 death of a star swimmer who drowned in the school’s $25 million athletic center even as two lifeguards were on duty. And in 2003, two grown billionaires were observed fighting on a Park Avenue street corner over alleged financial mismanagement that eventually led to a faculty vote of no-confidence against a popular rector.

The school’s current rector, Michael Hirschfeld, declined to comment on the Senior Salute, telling the AP—apparently without irony—that “St. Paul’s School has policies in place to ensure that our students are safe, secure, and treated equitably.”

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

Lenny Robinson, the Maryland man who sold his cleaning business and invested thousands in becoming a real-life Batman so he could cheer up terminally ill children in hospitals, was killed in a car accident late Sunday night.

Robinson was returning from a West Virginia car show, where he was showing off his Lamborghini Batmobile, when he apparently stopped “partially in the fast lane” due to engine trouble. He was hit by a driver in a Camry and fatally injured. The driver of the other car wasn’t seriously hurt.

Batman was the president of Superheroes for Kids, Inc., a Justice League of similarly-minded individuals who helped set up costumed visits for sick children.

By the time he reached internet fame—due to a 2012 viral video of cops pulling over his Batmobile—he had reportedly spent more than $25,000 of his personal fortune on the toys and bat-memorabilia he gave away to kids.

The Washington Post reports that’s what he was doing just before the fatal crash:

Robinson had just stopped at a gas station, where he met a family whose children were interested in his custom-made car, Maryland state police in Hagerstown said. Robinson gave the kids some superhero paraphernalia before leaving about the same time as his new acquaintances. When they saw him pull over, they did the same and witnessed the 10:30 p.m. accident, state police said.

If you can handle a good cry, here’s a video produced by the Washington, D.C. childhood cancer nonprofit Hope for Henry, showing Robinson doing what he did best—rolling up in the Batmobile and cheering up a shy kid with leukemia.