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Jennifer Connell, the woman who briefly looked like a monster to the world because she sued her nephew for breaking her wrist by jumping into her arms for a hug, went on the Today show this morning to clarify that she was actually trying to recover money from an insurance company, not a small child.

http://gawker.com/manhattan-woma...

And, to make sure the public understands there’s no bad blood between Connell and the rest of her family, 12-year-old Sean Tarala joined her on the show.

“She would never do anything to hurt the family,” the nephew/defendant said, later adding, “I feel like people were saying things they didn’t know.”

“We love each other very much, and this was simply a case of formality with an insurance claim,” Connell said.

http://gawker.com/aunt-loses-law...

The so-called “Auntie-Christ” reiterated what her lawyers said in a statement yesterday: Connecticut law says that the homeowner’s insurance company can’t be named in an injury lawsuit. Instead, a plaintiff has to sue the responsible party to collect the insurance payout.

The language in the suit, which called Sean’s enthusiastic hug, delivered when Aunt Jen came to visit on his 8th birthday, “negligent” and “careless,” was just the legalese required to make the case, she said.

A jury, which also wasn’t allowed to know about the insurance company’s involvement, took 25 minutes to find in Sean’s favor.

The homeowner’s policy was held by Travelers Insurance, which told Gawker by email that “We think the verdict speaks for itself.”

“Perhaps it’s the way the legal system is set up, so that the insurance companies aren’t necessarily in the spotlight for stepping up and taking responsibility for handling claims on properties,” Connell said, trying to make sense of what’s happened to her reputation over the past couple of days.

Perhaps.

The companies are left out of the proceedings to avoid biasing a jury, which is supposed to determine negligence based on the facts of the case, not the defendant’s ability to pay through insurance. But sometimes that leads to a case like this, where the entire proceeding seems cruel and nonsensical without the full picture.

[Screengrab: Today]

Women: a liability to the smooth functioning of the patriarchal labor system? I didn’t say it—science did.

A new study of thousands of workers all over the world found that women—and hey, we love em, but we have to report the facts here—simply are not equipped for the stress of modern capitalism. From the LA Times: “After analyzing data on nearly 140,000 workers from three continents, researchers found that those with “high-strain” jobs were 22% more likely than their peers to suffer a stroke. The risk was particularly acute for women, who were 33% more likely to have a stroke if their jobs fell into this most stressful category.”

Women are always asking for “equality” in the workplace, but now we hear that they may well have a stroke if we allow them to work in important “high strain” fields. Sorry, ladies, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to keep having strokes, then we simply can’t let you work in high-strain jobs such as.. *peers at the actual job categories in the study*... “waitresses, nursing aides and other service-industry occupations.”

Uh.. yeah... women’s delicate constitutions means we’re gonna have to relegate them to meager “low-strain” jobs such as.. *peers at study again*... “scientists and architects.”

Forget the liberal political correctness, ladies. Accept the fact that god made men and women different. You tried waitressing—you couldn’t hack it. From now on, stick to science and architecture!

Love, men.

[Photo: Flickr]

In our digital age, there are increasingly more ways for young women to become famous. Perhaps the fastest growing exposure industry is YouTube, where content creators in their early twenties cosplay “high school life” for a legion of pre-teen viewers. “I hope your message is that this is fucked up,” a mom of a 10-year-old YouTube fan told me Monday night.

We were both weary attendees at “Girls Night In,” a live performance put on by the YouTube creator network FullScreen. The show is currently making its way to 20 cities around the country, and its players are some of the most popular young women producing makeup tutorial, DIY, and “lifestyle” videos today: Eva Gutowski, Meredith Foster, Alisha Marie, Sierra Furtado, and Mia Stammer. These women, all in their early twenties, have a combined total of over 14 million followers on YouTube.

But only around 200 pre-teen girls, moms in tow, showed up to the Marlin Room at New York’s Webster Hall on Monday to watch Eva and the gang act out videos IRL. (“Girls Night In” was originally scheduled to play the much larger Best Buy Theater; FullScreen wisely changed the venue last week.)

My sister, a girl with whom I’ve spent countless nights in, agreed to go with me to the show—a favor I will be paying back in ways big and small for the next several weeks.

“Everyone move back! I will stop this show! Move back!”

In a teaser video announcing the “Girls Night In” tour back in July, Meredith described the show this way: “We love meeting you guys, and we love being creative, so we thought we’d put the two together, put on a show, and go on the road.” FullScreen President Ezra Cooperstein promised in a press release: “Attendees will see their favorite creators perform and share experiences with the wider community like never before.”

Neither of those statements mean anything, of course, so when my sister and I showed up at the Marlin Room at 7:15 p.m., we still had no idea what we were there to see. Were they just going to...talk?

Whatever was about to happen, there were a lot of pre-teen girls excited about it. The fans crowded around the front of the small stage, prompting a stagehand to come out and instruct the girls to move back. “I will stop this show!” he yelled. “Move! Back!”

One young attendee, clearly panicked that this unknown authority figure might follow through with his threat, looked around wildly and screamed, “We gotta move!!!!”

Her cry did not resonate with her fellow tweens, and the stagehand did end up stopping the show, many times. Each time the girls were reprimanded, they would move back two feet and then slowly creep forward again. The stagehand seemed nervous that someone was going to get trampled, which I guess was fair.

The girls’ chaperones, who were almost exclusively moms, lined the perimeter of the room.

“Life’s too short to be sad...EVER”

Before Eva, Meredith, Alisha, Sierra, and Mia took the stage, singer-songwriter Andie Case—whose renditions of pop songs regularly rack up millions of views on YouTube—played a five-song set to warm up the crowd. Backed by two male guitarists and a drum kit, she sounded good and ever-so-slightly punk. In between songs, she flipped her long, blond hair around and shrugged her loose-fitting grey t-shirt off one shoulder, while spouting off blindingly positive maxims like “Good vibes only!” and “Life’s too short to be sad...EVER!”

“This is like an episode of the O.C.,” my sister said. “Or a Hollister ad.”

The fans, high off the suggestion that they need never be sad, screamed with wild abandon after each song.

When Andie launched into a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams,” they all sweetly sang along, getting a little tripped up when she segued into Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” for a few bars at the end.

It was a cute moment before a long series of cringeworthy and bad ones.

“We shouldn’t do Snapchats, they’ll start screaming”

When Andie left the stage and it became clear that the real show was about to begin, the fans’ screams registered at a damaging decibel level. One of the “Girls Night In” players noticed this and gave the following order to her fellow performers backstage: “We shouldn’t do Snapchats when we go out, they’ll start screaming. Just speak your lines.”

I know this because she said it on a hot mic and everyone heard.

Then Eva, Meredith, Alisha, Sierra, and Mia all bounded onstage, wearing PJs. They did not do Snapchats. They spoke their lines. The fans screamed anyway.

The opening act, in which the players presented the show’s premise—the girls meet a magical YouTube queen who orders them to create five videos in one night to “save the Internet”—was stilted at best. To me, it was reminiscent of the plays my sister and I used to come up with in the backyard when we were 10.

My sister and I, however, performed our dramas gratis for our half-asleep parents. Tickets to “Girls Night In” were $25—or $100 if you wanted a meet-and-greet with the YouTubers before the show. Judging by the exclusive, neon green meet-and-greet bags in almost every mother’s hands, nearly everyone paid $100 for “Girls Night In.”

And yet, as any Evanator or Sierranator or Mere Bear or Mac Baby or Miatary member will tell you, it’s a small price to pay to see your idol live. As if to convince the adults in the audience of this, the players performed a mildly sexy dance to real girl band Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” shortly after the opening act. (Mia face-planted at the end.)

This 20 seconds of day camp talent show fun was the most choreographed and professional part of the evening’s performance.

The rest of it was the Just Girly Things Tumblr come to life. There was a twerking contest. Then there was a lip synching contest. Then there was a smoothie-drinking contest. By the time the players got to the karaoke contest (different from the lip synching contest), my sister began faking a cold. “I think I might need to go home early,” she said.

The majority of the show—the twerking, the smoothie-drinking, etc.—did not seem to be scripted at all. The players just sort of shimmied around onstage, making dry, performative conversation that was always punctuated with a “yeah girl!” or “goals!” They were just hanging out, on stage, for over two hours.

But maybe that’s the appeal for a 10-year-old viewer—to watch thin, pretty “high school girls” (who are actually thinner, prettier, and four years older than anyone in high school right now) act out an all-girls sleepover. The players don’t need to sing or dance to be entertaining. They’re just goals.

“We’re not nerdy moms, but this is ridiculous”

What was likely supposed to be the emotional climax of the show was a 3-minute, never-before-seen animated video that played on the big screen onstage in between contests. In it, cartoon versions of Eva, Meredith, Alisha, Sierra, and Mia explained to viewers that they, too, have hard times, and that their goals status did not always come so easily.

One cartoon revealed she was bullied for playing the clarinet in middle school. Another confessed to once feeling insecure about being so thin. Each girl found their happy ending, however: YouTube. A place where they can confidently be themselves.

“I mean, that’s bullshit,” a mom of an 11-year-old fan told me at the show. “They all said they were bullied. Look at them. I know that’s bad! But what message does that send?”

She, along with four other moms of young fans, stood on the sidelines near my sister and I during the show. When we started chatting towards the end of it, they all told me they didn’t know what to expect from “Girls Night In” and were both awestruck and disappointed that this was what their daughters have been watching all this time.

“It’s just mindless,” another mom of a 10-year-old said. “It got a little better after my second vodka.” When I told her I was writing about the show, she said seriously, “I hope your message is that this is fucked up.”

“We’re not nerdy moms,” she assured me. “But this is ridiculous!”

The first mom revealed that during the meet-and-greet, multiple fans cried. “I cried when I met Steven Tyler,” she joked.

Another wondered aloud when the whole thing would be over. “They would have to walk on water to make this good,” she said. “Or turn water into wine!”

Then the first mom then asked me where I thought the career of a YouTube star would be in 10 years. I told her honestly I didn’t know. When I turned my focus back to the stage, the girls were doing the Nae Nae as part of a truth or dare contest.

After the show finally came to an end with one last rousing sing-along to Eva’s original YouTube song “Literally My Life,” my sister and I wandered outside, ears ringing. She asked me if this had been the first performance of “Girls Night In.” “Maybe they could still work some things out,” she offered.

I told her that no, it was not their first stop—they only have six shows left. “Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s bad.”

It was bad, but it didn’t matter. As we walked to the train, a tiny girl who couldn’t have been more than eight literally skipped along in front of us, next to her mom who was carrying a big bag of YouTube merch. “Alisha looked right at me!” the girl screamed at her mom, stopping to hug her. By the time we reached the train, it was 10 p.m.—a little late for a school night.

GIF by Jim Cooke via YouTube. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

President Obama just announced that he’s abandoned his plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 2017. At least 9,800 troops will remain in the country through next year, after which the number will, Obama claims, drop to about 5,500.

There have been a lot of End-of-Days-to-be over the years. Y2K. Wayne Bent’s Day of Judgement. The Mayan Apocalypse. The Blood Moon Prophecy. All of which have come and gone without leaving Earth the smoldering pile of rubble we’re so often promised. But now, finally, eBible Fellowship is here to tell us why with a friendly FAQ on why we’re all still alive.

The group actually first said the world would be ending on May 21, 2011, but when the heavens declined to rain hellfire down on mankind on the appointed day, the Philadelphia-based online church was forced to reschedule. That new date was October 7, 2015—or last Wednesday.

And while it may not have seemed like there was any question in the eBible Fellowship’s mind about the destruction to come (“[The World] will be gone forever. Annihilated,” founder Chris McCann told The Guardian.”), according to the recently posted explanation, apparently that date was more of a strong suggestion than a hard and fast rule:

We believed there was a strong likelihood that God would complete His judgment and bring about the world’s destruction on that day. There was much biblical information pointing to this date and we freely shared it with all. Yet, consistently stressing throughout the entire time period that the world ending on that date was a “strong likelihood.” Since it is now October 8^th it is now obvious that we were incorrect regarding the world’s ending on the 7^th.

But if we’re still around, does that mean that God is okay with our many, many sins? You bet not!

It should be noted that the world “not” being destroyed on the 7^th is in no way some sort of divine justification of the world. According to the Word of God the sentence upon the world has been passed (it is guilty) and the world will certainly pass away as detailed in numerous places in the Bible. E Bible Fellowship was incorrect regarding the specific day of its end, but we were not incorrect concerning the fact that it will one day soon come to an end.

And more importantly—did the eBible Fellowship lie?

No. The fact is that we consistently told people that October 7^th, 2015 (being the end of the world) was a strong likelihood. And according to the good amount of biblical evidence at our disposal it was. Therefore saying it was a “strong likelihood” was a true statement. We also openly acknowledged that there was a small likelihood that it would not happen. There was no lie or deceitfulness involved in any way.

Well, that clears that up. You can read more about why you are still alive over on the eBible Fellowship’s no-Apocalypse FAQ page here. And don’t worry, our world should be ending again sometime in the year 2020. Enjoy your five remaining years, sinners.

[h/t Daily Dot]

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

The Intercept has obtained a new cache of top secret documents detailing how the U.S. government hunts and kills suspected terrorists from the sky. It reveals a sprawling, labyrinthine machine for remote executions—and one that leaves unintended bodies by the craters.

Like every other military apparatus, the American drone program has its own opaque language for how it kills, Josh Begley of The Intercept explains:

When drone operators hit their target, killing the person they intend to kill, that person is called a “jackpot.”

When they miss their target and end up killing someone else, they label that person EKIA, or “enemy killed in action.”

That’s right: if a Hellfire missile hits someone it wasn’t supposed to hit, that corpse is classified as an “enemy,” as this graphic from the cache shows:

But the pages also contain EKIA and “jackpot” numbers from a five-month period in northern Afghanistan:

As Begley points out, this is a lot of EKIAs and not very many jackpots:

Note the “%” column. It is the number of jackpots (JPs) divided by the number of operations. A 70 percent success rate. But it ignores well over a hundred other people killed along the way.

This means that almost 9 out of 10 people killed in these strikes were not the intended targets.

Drones are touted by the Pentagon (and accepted by the public) as surgically accurate, the smartest and most humane way to kill someone with a button-press. And that’s not wrong—they are the most accurate way to kill someone from the sky. But this accuracy means nothing if the button-pressers are operating in a system where the guy standing next to the target becomes an enemy the moment they’re both vaporized.

You should read the rest of The Intercept’s drone trove here.

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

Before vanishing in a puff of smoke a week ago, Republic House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy asserted that the House’s select committee on Benghazi had been very successful ... in damaging Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers. The backlash against those comments may have led to McCarthy’s abrupt withdrawal from the Speaker of the House race, but this week, one of his Republic colleagues admitted what McCarthy said was basically true.

“Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth,” Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) said on a New York morning radio show Wednesday.

“This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton ... After what Kevin McCarthy said, it’s difficult to accept at least a part of it was not [political].”

The select committee was meant to investigate the attack that killed four people, among them U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, in Libya back in 2012, but it’s also had the effect of keeping alive the meme that the attack was all Hillary’s fault. (See, for example, the typo-ridden attack ad StopHillaryPAC ran during the Democratic debate this week.)

http://gawker.com/anti-hillary-b...

The committee has also come under fire from one of its former investigators, Maj. Bradley Podliska, who claimed he was fired because “he resisted pressure to focus his investigative efforts solely on the State Department and Clinton’s role,” CNN reported.

Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the head of the select committee, called Podliska’s claims “sensationalistic and fabulist,” and trashed CNN as not “fact-centric,” unlike his objective, unbiased, non-witch-hunty committee, for interviewing Podliska in the first place.

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to testify before that committee on October 22.

[h/t ThinkProgress, Photo of Hanna via AP Images]

How many Americans do you think were killed by police in, let’s say, 2012? You don’t know? Neither do I, and neither does anyone else—including the FBI.

That’s not to say that the feds don’t try to keep up with the number of citizens knocked off by local law enforcement officers ever year. Police are asked to report killings to the FBI each year, but not strictly ordered to. You can imagine how eager most departments are to hand over their data.

The pitfalls of this volunteer-only approach are obvious, and the FBI’s data has long been known to be inaccurate. The statistical holes have led intrepid outsiders like the Gun Violence Archive to attempt their own comprehensive databases—our colleagues at Deadspin are working on one too—but in the absence of reliable self-reported data, it’s impossible to know whether anything is falling through the cracks.

Enter the Guardian, which is attempting to document every killing by U.S. police this year for its project The Counted (there have been 903 at the time of this writing). Guardian reporters obtained the FBI’s numbers for 2014, and found that the agency’s record-keeping is just as flailing and insufficient as you’d expect.

For starters, just 224 of the country’s roughly 18,000 local police departments opted into the reporting at all. Those departments do not include the NYPD or the Cleveland Police, meaning the deaths of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice—the sparks of nationwide protests and news coverage about police killings—are nowhere to be found in the U.S.’s official record of those killings.

This, of course, is an enormous oversight, and needs to be fixed somehow. Fortunately, we seem to be moving in the right direction. FBI director James Comey said last week that the agency’s lack of comprehensive data on crime of all kinds is “embarrassing and ridiculous,” and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a new open-source system for tracking use of force by law enforcement officers this month.

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

J. Dennis Hastert—the former House speaker who allegedly spent several million dollars paying off a male teenage victim—has reportedly agreed to a plea deal which would effectively bury the details of his alleged sexual misconduct.

Prosecutors indicted the former politician this spring, alleging he had funneled as much as $3.5 million in hush money—paid in $10,000 increments—to a former student who had attended the high school where Hastert once taught and coached wrestling.

http://gawker.com/why-did-dennis...

The charges concerned only banking fraud allegations in connection with hush money payments to a recipient identified only as “Individual A.” Subsequent reports indicated the so-called hush money was intended to bury allegations of unspecified sexual misconduct, though the former speaker has never been criminally charged.

Still Hastert, who initially pleaded not guilty and was set to go to trial, reportedly reached the agreement with prosecutors Thursday. He is expected to change his plea on Oct. 28, though it’s still unclear which of the charges he’s copping to and how long he’ll be going away for. (He was, prior to the agreement, facing up to ten years in jail plus fines.)

But the deal also means the details of the sexual misconduct may never become public: thanks to the agreement, Hastert won’t have to testify about the details of his payments. And neither will the student, believed to be Steve Reinboldt, who reportedly died in 1995.

http://gawker.com/family-names-a...

Even so, Reinboldt’s sister appears to have filled in some of the details:

“I asked him, when was your first same sex experience. He looked at me and said, ‘It was with Dennis Hastert,’” Jolene said. “I was stunned.”

Jolene said she asked her brother why he never told anyone. “And he just turned around and kind of looked at me and said, ‘Who is ever going to believe me?’”

Jolene said that Steve told her the abuse lasted throughout Steve’s four years of high school as he served as team student manager. “Mr. Hastert had plenty of opportunities to be alone with Steve, because he was there before the meets,” she said. “He was there after everything because he did the laundry, the uniforms. So he was there by himself with him,” she added.

The details of Hastert’s agreement are expected to be made public on his next court appearance.

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

Here are the best of today’s deals. Get every great deal every day on Kinja Deals, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to never miss a deal, join us on Kinja Gear to read about great products, and on Kinja Co-Op to help us find the best.

More Deals

Today’s Best Gaming Deals​

http://deals.kinja.com/todays-best-ga...

Today’s Best Media Deals

http://deals.kinja.com/todays-best-me...

Editor’s Note: We’re a little shorthanded this week, so we won’t be doing our regular app or apparel deals posts. If we see something really good though, we’ll include it here.

Top Deals

Amazon’s been on a roll with the apparel Gold Box deals lately, and the trend continues with two new bundles of discounts today. The Seiko watches are designed for men, but the Merrell Shoes promotion includes both men’s and women’s designs.

• Seiko Men’s Watches Starting at $43 | Amazon | Today only
• 45% off Merrell Shoes | Amazon | Today only

If you want a pair of wireless headphones without sacrificing sound quality, this deal’s for you. Jabra’s Revo Bluetooth headphones have great reviews around the web, and Adam Clark Estes at Gizmodo said they sounded about the same as the excellent Jabra Move Wireless, but with better build quality and ear cup controls.

http://gizmodo.com/the-best-bluet...

Amazon has the Revos listed for $159-$190 right now, but if you hurry, you can score a pair from Woot for just $110. [Jabra Revo Wireless Bluetooth Headphones, $110]

http://electronics.woot.com/offers/jabra-r...

Earlier this week, we shared a $50 deal on a barebones Brother laser printer, but if you were holding out for a model with wireless networking and/or a flatbed scanner, you’ve got two great options to choose from today.

If you aren’t familiar, these printers only print in black and white, but they can spit out nearly 30 pages per minute, feature automatic duplex, and their toner cartridges can last for years. Basically, they’re the only cheap printers on the market that are actually any good.

Brother HL-L2340DW Compact Laser Printer ($75) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL-L23...

Brother HL-L2380DW Wireless Monochrome Laser Printer ($100) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL-L23...

August just came out with a new version of its smart lock that works with Siri, but if you don’t care about such things, the standard model also dropped to $199 on Amazon, an all-time low. Be sure to check out Gizmodo’s review to learn more about it. [August Smart Lock, $199. Multiple colors available.]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QI6FVIQ

http://gizmodo.com/august-smart-l...

If you like to cook with garlic, but dread mincing it by hand, this cheap garlic press will save you so much time. I got one a few months ago, and wish I’d done it sooner. [Propresser Garlic Press Stainless Steel, $11 with code V9YX5JDT]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

Watching the debate in VR might have sucked, but don’t let that scare you away from the concept. Samsung’s Gear VR Innovator’s Edition is 50% off right now, and is a no-brainer if you own a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, and want to experience the next frontier in consumer electronics. [Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition for Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, $100]

http://gizmodo.com/samsung-gear-v...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XBJXLBC

Drones (or quadcopters, for you pedantic commenters) are ridiculously fun, but you probably want to get some practice flying them before you spend $1,000 on a Phantom.

This tiny indoor Syma X11C sets itself apart from other micro drones with a 2MP onboard camera, and while its operating range probably doesn’t extend very far past your living room, but it’s still solid as a learning tool, or just as a toy in its own right. [Syma X11C 4 Channel 2.4Ghz RC Quadcopter with 2MP HD Camera, $35 with code 3OKYPHJV]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

Note: One reviewer noted that the included microSD card is too slow to be any use for video recording, so you’ll want to pop in your own.

If The Martian got you excited about heroic space rescues, the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray of Apollo 13 is down to $10 today, complete with a bunch of special features, and a digital copy. Houston, we have a deal. [Apollo 13 - 20th Anniversary Edition, $10]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...

Even if you don’t like Call of Duty, hell, even if you don’t own a PS4, you might want to buy Call of Duty: Ghosts Prestige Edition for $40 on PS4, or $30 on PS3. In addition to the game, you get an actual 1080p action cam and a survival paracord bracelet. That’s easily worth more than $40, game excluded. [Call of Duty: Ghosts Prestige Edition (PS4), $40. $10 less on PS3]

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Ghos...

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If Fallout 4’s silly new live action trailer has you excited, you can save $7 on your PS4 or Xbox One preorder from Amazon, if you’re a Prime member. Less than a month away!

• Preorder Fallout 4 ($53) [PS4/Xbox One] | Amazon | Prime members only. Discount shown at checkout.
  

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If you have kids, chances are that they live and breathe Minecraft, and with today’s Amazon Gold Box deal, you can turn that obsession into something more productive.

Today only, you can save up to 40% on Youth Digital software that teaches the basics of Java programming through the creation of Minecraft mods and servers. Both software packs include 30+ hours of interactive lessons, and boast great Amazon reviews. And yeah, they’re still expensive at $150 each, but that’s about $50-$100 less than usual, and the lowest price Amazon’s ever offered. Think of it as an investment! [40% Off Learn Java with Minecraft Software by Youth Digital]

If your PC is feeling sluggish, this 500GB SSD has plenty of space for files, games, and apps, and only costs $150 today, matching an all-time low. [Crucial BX100 500GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive, $150]

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX100-...

Want Bluetooth audio and handsfree calling in your older car? This Wirecutter-recommended dongle takes the Bluetooth signal from your phone, and retransmits it to the FM radio station of your choice. The sound quality will take a hit, but if you don’t have an AUX jack, this is probably your best option short of buying an entirely new stereo. [Mpow Streambot Y Wireless Bluetooth FM Transmitter, $28 with code ABYREJAV]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KIMX4EY

If you’re in the market for a reliable portable hard drive, the ever-popular WD My Passport Ultra 2TB is down to $70 right now, which is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on a 2TB external. [Western Digital My Passport Ultra Black 2 TB, $70]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-My-Pass...

Apple’s AirPort Extreme isn’t the most powerful 802.11ac router on the market, and it’s certainly not the most configurable. But it looks fanstastic, and it’s easy to set up, which counts for something.

Apple charges $199 for it, which isn’t an outrageous price for an 802.11ac router, but you can get an open box model on eBay right now for $130. If your home network is still mired in 802.11n, and you like Apple devices, this is a great chance to upgrade. [Apple AirPort Extreme, $130]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-AirP...

If your wiper blades are starting to streak, Amazon’s offering a pair of Rain-X Latitudes for just $23 today. All you have to do is pick the two you want, add them to your cart, and you’ll see the discount at checkout. You can even mix and match sizes, so you’re almost certain to find a combination that works for your car. [Two Rain-X Latitude Wiper Blades, $23]

Note: The discount will only work on blades shipped and sold by Amazon directly. No third party sellers.

Tech

Storage

• WD My Passport Ultra 2TB External Hard Drive ($70) | eBay

Power

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According to reports, a “former CIA agent” who frequently talked national security on Fox News was actually just an extremely talented con man with a penchant for scamming Fox News producers and government contractors alike.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors reportedly charged Wayne Simmons with false statements, major fraud against the U.S., and wire fraud.

It seems Simmons—a frequent Fox News guest who also wrote a book drawing on his “27 years in the CIA”—was able to parlay his claims of a career in intelligence into actual government contractor jobs abroad.

For example, the Washington Post reports, Simmons was invited to train at a U.S. Army facility after allegedly lying his way into a position as a “Human Terrain System Team Leader” for an “unnamed government contractor in 2008.” From the Post:

He won an interim security clearance for that job, prosecutors alleged, by “falsely stating that he had been recruited to the CIA in 1973, that he had not previously been charged with or convicted of a felony offense, that his prior arrests and criminal convictions were directly related to his supposed intelligence work for the CIA, and that he had held a top secret security clearance from 1973 to 2000.”

And apparently no one bothered to run a background check, because two years later he popped up in another government subcontractor job.

In that role, [prosecutors] said, he was actually deployed overseas as an adviser to senior U.S. military personnel.

And, prosecutors say, he also straight-up stole money: he’s been charged with taking a $125,000 “real estate investment” and using it for his personal expenses.

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

Why do people go to hotels? Travel. Romance. Simultaneous construction on their first home and their summer home. And finally: To stay up all night in order to liveblog a ghost hunt on Gawker.com. Join me—please. I’m at the Algonquin. (You stay home.)

The Algonquin Hotel was built in 1902, making it New York City’s oldest continuous-working hotel, according to the leather-bound hotel book in my hotel room. Tonight I will stay here, awake, all night, looking for the leftover souls of the Algonquin Round Table, in what is certainly New York City’s most misguided Specter Detector-related stunt.

Maybe you’ve heard of the Algonquin Round Table. In fact, I’m sure you have. It refers to the group of thirty writers, critics, editors, etc., etc., who lunched together at the Algonquin Hotel regularly, for about eight years, beginning in 1919. Among the group were Dorothy Parker, New Yorker founder Harold Ross, Harpo Marx, Franklin Adams, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, and so on. You get it. Famous literary and media figures whose names you know in a way that allows you to nod along as they are listed by someone else.

My new friends!

Some of the souls of the Algonquin Round Table are rumored to haunt this, their former hang. They’re said to scare people in elevators, to make children cry in the main dining room, to appear for a drink in the bar, and to make general ghost-like tap-tap-tapping sounds in the bedrooms.

From 9 p.m. tonight to 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, I will stalk the supposedly ghost-inhabited halls of the Algonquin Hotel. Through use of a Ouija board and a jewel on a string that I bought from on-line, I will attempt to convene with the spirits of the Algonquin Round Table. I will reach out to the ghost of Dorothy Parker and hope she reaches back with some sort of clever play on words, but not so clever that I don’t “get” it.

I’ll update you every hour, let’s say, on whether or not a ghost has contacted me—Kelly Conaboy, ghost hunter—from the dead. And you’ll follow along ‘til tomorrow morning. OK? Deal.

BOO!

Update: 9:56 p.m.

My room here at the Algonquin is, genuinely, a bit spooky. A little tight—will be close quarters with the ghosts, once they reveal themselves. The window faces another wall of the hotel, making it lit exclusively by in-room artificial lighting and by when the people in the room across the way have their light on, too. (They are not yet having sex, in case you were wondering—disgusting of you.) The “Quiet, please” sign on the door offers the excuse, “Writing the Great American Novel.” Eep! Plus sometimes I hear noises that could be attributed to clever ghosts disguising their ghost noises as hotel-related noises.

Very scary.

The bath products smell great, however.

In advance of this stunt, I purchased Natural Rose Quartz Crystal Pendulum 12 Facet Reiki Charged for $6.19 from Amazon, a popular website. According to Amazon, it was “handcrafted in Brazil and charged by a Reiki master” and “can be used for divination and dowsing.” Oh yes—just what I was looking for. Here’s what it looks like on the stately Algonquin carpet:

Pink. :)

To begin my night of ghost-finding, just now, I used the Natural Rose Quartz Crystal Pendulum 12 Facet Reiki Charged to do a bit of a roll call for members of the Round Table. Of course, I did this not without first reading a piece titled “Pendulums – How They Work and How to Use Them” on Ghosts101.com, a trusted source. It offers this warning:

Some people can use pendulums, but they internalize the energy. That’s not a good idea. If you can’t remain completely separate from the pendulum you’re using, stop immediately. Do not allow outside energy to be channeled through your body to the pendulum. (And, if you can’t tell the difference, don’t use a pendulum. The risks are too great.)

Can I tell the difference between not allowing outside energy to be channeled through my body and, hmm, I guess, allowing outside energy to be channeled through my body? I’ll be honest—no. Am I willing to take that risk? I’ll be honest—

Yes.

To use the pendulum, you ask a question. Depending on which way the pendulum swings, the answer you’re given to your question is either “yes,” “no,” “ask again,” or “maybe.” My question was: are you here? I went down the list of the 30 Round Table members, speaking their names aloud, alone in here, like a psycho, and I collected their ghostly responses for you in this spooky spreadsheet:

The pendulum actually swung different ways, which was startling. I was not expecting that. But then sometimes it would swing sorta the same way a few times in a row, which made it less startling—I was expecting that.

Eight confirmed ghosts. Ten confirmed rejections—rude. Beatrice and George aren’t together, which is sad. Dorothy, I imagine, is just being coy. So that’s who we’re dealing with.

Aside from that, since arriving at the hotel the eyelid on my right eye has seemed to swell to about twice its size.

Ghosts? Or—

Am I allergic to this hotel?

We’ll see. If I die by morning, please tell them to focus the autopsy on both ghost and allergy-related fatalities.

Update: 11:08 p.m.

Part of the Algonquin’s thing is that there’s always some kinda cat here. The tradition began in the ‘30s when Frank Case, owner and manager of the Algonquin in the Round Table era, took in a stray male cat. The cat was named “Hamlet” by John Barrymore, the actor, and since then the hotel has hosted six other “Hamlet” cats, effectively a memento mori named Hamlet. OK, John Barrymore.

The hotel has also hosted three female cats, all named Matilda, and its current cat is one of those: a Matilda.

You can email her, which is unfortunate. More unfortunate is she has a Twitter account:

Hahah. “can’t wait to see myself.” Same. Though the online presence a little bit ruins the forever-dying-yet-ever-present cat lore, I emailed Matilda earlier today hoping to pick her brain about ghosts:

From: Kelly Conaboy
Time: 2:55 PM
To: Matilda the Cat

Hi!

Matilda, have you ever seen a ghost in the hotel?

If yes, who do you think it was?

Thank you!

-Kelly

To my delight, she emailed me back instantly.

From: Matilda the Cat
Time: 2:55 PM
To: Kelly Conaboy

CATnapping.

Please remember our less FURtunate FURiends.

Uh—

What, Matilda?

A little rude. If you want me to remember our less FURtunate FURiends, you should at least wait until you’ve finished CATnapping and then tell me if you’ve seen a ghost. I would never ask you to do anything without offering you a favor in return. (In this case the favor would have been—you ask me to remember our less FURtunate FURiends, and then I tell you that I will.)

As I planned my night here, I knew one of the “things” had to be that I saw this cat. Who knew that the thing would happen so early. As I walked around the lobby a few minutes ago, my EMF at a steady “no ghosts,” I saw two men with suitcases taking photos of, seemingly, the wall behind a counter. As both an untrained reporter and an untrained ghost hunter, I knew I had to see what they were taking photos of—

Was it a ghost?

No.

It was a beautiful cat:

MY SWEETIE!

I crouched behind one of the men to take a picture, and then he nearly fell on me because the way I crouched down was the way you’d crouch behind someone if you wanted them to fall as a prank. Whoops—sorry, man.

A very cute little cat, though. Here’s another photo:

Aww. Who’s a little angry sleepy? My baby!

My EVP, which displays words ghosts are trying to tell you, if you remember from previous outings, displayed one word while I walked around the lobby:

“travel”

:-0

When I saw it, I said aloud: “holy shit.” A bit much, in retrospect. If it said “looking for ghosts for Gawker,” that would have really been something. But maybe it was talking about the suitcase man who almost fell on me.

Update: 1:27 a.m.

The Algonquin Hotel’s Blue Bar features blue lighting, a decision influenced, again, by John Barrymore, who believed the blue lighting did wonders for the appearance of people’s complexions. Kind of him, but, for me personally, I don’t think my companions benefit very much from that decision. (They are dead.)

“It’s funny it’s called the Blue Bar. It’s blue, I got blue balls—it’s funny,” said one of the very drunk patrons seated next to me during my stay at the Blue Bar. It is funny, I guess, in that way. Blue Bar.

When I arrived at the Blue Bar, a little over an hour ago, a lady was screaming—in a friendly way—at the very kind bartender about how he should let her pay for the tab while her boyfriend was in the bathroom. The bartender would not. Upon the boyfriend’s return, the bartender told him about what his lady was up to, saying, “I will never let a beautiful woman pay for the tab.” “Never,” concurred the boyfriend.

Doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts, but certainly something I saw.

My EMF detector detected nothing while I was in the Blue Bar, even though members of the Algonquin Round Table often hung out there, as evidenced by this email I received just minutes ago:

From: Someone Named Andrew
Time: 12:56 a.m.
To: Kelly Conaboy

Did you go to the bar? That’s where they hung out, and it’s closing soon!

-A. Gost

Damn! I did, A. Gost! Thank you!

I ran the EVP for about ten minutes and it registered only one word: “war.” You might think this word has nothing to do with my situation at the Blue Bar, but that is only because you didn’t experience the blue balls guy to my left talking very loudly to the lady on my right, for a very long time, about Ohio—a place with which they were both familiar.

Did you know that the lady’s husband has relatives in Ohio?

And the guy also lived in Chicago briefly?

Where the lady lives now?

It’s true.

Here are some photos of the bar, the left “normal,” the right, “green for ghost detecting”:

(Do you see any ghosts?)

At the bar, which was packed and very loud, very different from the empty, old-timey-ness of the lobby, I ordered a Dorothy Parker cocktail, hoping it would awaken her spirit and also because it had all of the things I like:

• gin
• St. Germain
• basil
• honey
• lemon

Sounds good, right? It was good. Make it at home—

If you dare.

It has yet to awaken her spirit, but we’ve got about five hours to go, incredibly—so we’ll see. Also, did you know she came up with all of these turns of phrase?

“Chocolate bar.” Huh. Seems less like a turn of phrase than an accurate description of an object, but still—who knew.

After I forfeited the bar to the chatty Ohio pair, I took my cocktail into the lobby, where the very nice waiter brought me walnuts from the kitchen.

There were no ghosts in the lobby.

(Unless you see one?)

Soon, the Billie Holiday playing over the speakers turned to contemporary covers of old standards, the lighting turned from dim to bright, and the ambient noise turned from light chatting to vacuums.

It was time for me to leave.

Now, in my room again, I’ve ordered a delivery cheesesteak from Ray’s Pizza and the swelling on my right eyelid has gone down almost completely. Was the swelling simply a ghost test, to see if I am tough enough?

Yes.

Update: 3:21 a.m.

I’ve received my cheesesteak and have finished the cold coffee I ordered earlier from room service. From now on I’m on my own, in terms of cheesesteaks and coffee. Will I be able to make it until 6 a.m.?

Yes.

I will. It is my job.

Let’s explore the elevators.

An October, 2009 post from Oyster.com titled “Is NYC’s Algonquin Hotel haunted? One guest says so...” recounts a firsthand experience of ghostly happenings in the hotel’s elevators. She begins by saying a fellow Algonquin visitor asked if she was “feeling” anything on her side of the hotel, which she was not, however:

Then I remembered in a previous stay I was on the elevator and I heard the song “I’m In The Mood For Love” and I jokingly asked who was singing it - or to my husband and a fellow passenger thinking about it? They responded as if I were nuts and I secretly enjoyed the communication from somewhere??

Whaaaat?? She continues:

That night I heard moving furniture (as if on a wooden floor) twice and I was completely awake - but since I’m so fond of Dorothy and her gang I know she’s not harmful - I wasn’t afraid. Next day we are in the lobby waiting to go up and the doors open to a woman who has luggage and is exasperated. I said are you getting off - she said no she was trying to get to her floor. I laughed, entered the elevator and made a joke about it really being haunted but since we are regulars here we’ll ride to her floor and see her off safely! Meanwhile it stopped at every other floor - opened to no one and closed - we finally got her to the 9th floor and returned to the 5th safely.

Spooky, in a way.

As I approached the elevators earlier, my Ghost Meter, given to me “for you to keep, Kelly, as a personal gift” from Gawker news editor Taylor Berman, went wild.

BEEBEEBEEPBEEBEEPBEEEBEEPEBBEEBEBEEEEBEEPEEEEBEEP

Etc. I had to turn it off, if I can be honest with you, because it was about 2 a.m. and probably there are some people staying here who would rather spend the night sleeping than being notified about the possible presence of ghosts. (Not a fact, necessarily.)

The EMF meters I have on my iPhone didn’t gauge much of anything on the elevator, which I rode to the top floor—the 12th. (Not counting an alleged secret 13th floor inaccessible to the public.) Once I got off of the elevator and walked to my right, however, my EMF meter went nuts again:

Wow—almost “high.”

I stood in this spot for a few seconds, recording some audio and taking some photos.

Afterwards, I sat on the steps for a little while, hoping to see a ghost. It was at this point that I realized if someone were to watch me on a security camera, they might interpret my ghost hunting—walking, stopping all of a sudden, looking around, sitting down, looking around, staring at nothing, staring, staring, looking so nuts that it’s crazy—as evidence of an otherworldly possession.

Maybe this is part of how these rumors get started.

The evidence of my possession was not weakened by the fact that I requested the elevator stop at every single floor on my way back down to the lobby.

Zhhhhheeeeerr. CLANK. Whooosh. Zhhhhheeeeerr. CLANK. Whooosh. Zhhhhheeeeerr. CLANK. Whooosh. Zhhhhheeeeerr. CLANK. Whooosh. Zhhhhheeeeerr. CLANK. Whooosh. Etc. Though most were no doubt asleep, I’m sure my ghostly journey annoyed many. My bad.

While I was on the 12th floor taking readings, I did experience a couple full-body chills and gusts of cold air, two feelings which are often attributed to the presence of ghosts. These feelings followed me into the elevator. Was there an air conditioning vent above where I was standing on the 12th floor, and maybe this is why all of those things were happening, and now I’m just a little extra cold?

Yes.

Still a little spooky, though. I didn’t like it.

On my multi-stop elevator ride, my EVP displayed two words:

• “jeans” [what I’m wearing]
• “cookie” [I wish]

Maybe Dorothy Parker is calling me “cookie” as a pet name, and doesn’t like my jeans. Something to think about.

In the lobby, I asked the woman at the front desk if she’s ever experienced anything paranormal, or heard of anyone experiencing anything paranormal. She obliged me, kindly:

“Nooo, that’s just fiction. Everyone always asks because it’s an old hotel, and it’s spooky, but I’m the biggest scaredy cat in the world, and I always work this shift, and I walk around upstairs—” And you’re never scared? I asked. “No, no. And I’ve asked other people who’ve worked here if they’ve ever seen anything, or heard anything, and—” No? “No, no.”

Huh. A lie? Fair enough.

Update: 3:41 a.m.

I’ll tell you, at this point I am a little afraid. I don’t hear any people around anymore, or any TVs. I’m sleepy. I’m still a little cold from before. I’m going to take the Classic Ouija Board Game board from its plastic wrap in a minute and I’d rather not.

Love,

DEMON

Update: 4:03 a.m.

Do you think there really aren’t any ghosts here? The front desk lady has me worried. Maybe ghosts are like love—you won’t find one until you stop looking. Unfortunately I’m a Carrie, and I’ll never stop looking. “Carrie” like Carrie Bradshaw and “Carrie” like Carrie from Carrie.

OK—Ouija board.

I purchased the Ouija board on the same website from which I purchased my crystal from a lifetime ago—remember the crystal, from before? Hardly. In the reviews section, Seth Anderkin says, of the Ouija board, “I love this! While it could be bigger, it works perfectly well. Whether you believe in it or not, it’s still a fun thing to have.” Cool. :)

A person named Kelly (pretty) offers these one million words of advice, some of which are actually scary to me now, in my very tired state (bolded words my own):

Never play alone!

Never let the spirits count down through the numbers or go through the alphabet as they can get out of the board this way.

If the planchette goes to the four corners of the board it means that you have contacted an evil spirit.

If the planchette falls from a Ouija board, a spirit will get loose.

If the planchette repeatedly makes a figure eight, it means that an evil spirit is in control of the board.

If you should get an evil spirit, quickly turn the planchette upside down and use it that way.

The board must be “closed” properly or evil spirits will remain behind to haunt the operator.

Never use the Ouija when you are ill or in a weakened condition since this may make you vulnerable to possession. [UH-OH, what about if you’re tired?]

The spirit of the Ouija board creates “wins” for the user, causing him to become more and more dependent on the board. Addiction follows. This is called “progressive entrapment.”

Evil spirits contacted through the Ouija board will try to win your confidence with false flattery and lies.

Always be respectful and never upset the spirits.

Never use the Ouija in a graveyard or place where a terrible death has occurred or you will bring forth malevolent entities.

Witchboards are so named because witches use them to summon demons.

The very first Ouija boards were made from the wood of coffins. A coffin nail in the center of the planchette window served as the pointer.

Sometimes an evil spirit can permanently “inhabit” a board. When this happens, no other spirits will be able to use it.

When using a glass as a message indicator, you must always cleanse it first by holding it over a burning candle.

Ouija boards that are disposed of improperly, come back to haunt the owner.

A Ouija Board will scream if you try to burn it. People who hear the scream have less than thirty-six hours to live. There is only one proper way to dispose of it: break the board into seven pieces, sprinkle it with Holy Water then bury it. [Shit!!!!!!!!]

If you must use a Ouija board, make your own. Arrange the letters and numbers, into a circle so whatever is trapped within that circle can’t escape.

If you place a pure silver coin on the board, no evil spirits will be able to come through.

NEVER leave the planchette on the board if you aren’t using it.

Lecherous spirits from the Ouija board will sometimes ask young women to do rather . . . ah, odd things. Ignore them and always remember that your Ouija partner (i.e. boyfriend) has nothing to do with this.

Three things never to ask a Ouija board:

Never ask about God.

Never ask when you are going to die.

Never ask where the gold is buried.

Damn. I better not die because of this—OR hear wood scream.

One more: Robert Horvick offers, “My daughter loves it. Just minutes after using it she and her brother were able to summon the spirit of ‘Dick Butthead’ who died in ‘Ass’ nearly 1000 years ago. He apparently has come back from the dead to ‘kill evry1’ and ‘poop’.”

Haha. Man. This shit is spooky as hell.

Here is my Classic Ouija Board Game, out of its plastic and its box:

When I was young, a friend and I played the Ouija board and we asked the spirit for a sign and then my friend’s lamp fell over and broke, and it never worked again.

Just a memory that I’m thinking of currently.

Update: 5:07 a.m.

“Is anyone here?” I asked with my fingers placed gently, yet firmly, on the planchette. After a few moments, it moved—very slowly—before settling on “H.”

“H?” I asked, as it hesitated. “‘H’ what?” After a little while it moved somewhat swiftly down the board, pausing on “R,” and moving past “Q” towards the bottom left corner. I stopped it there, because of the thing I read about demons and corners earlier.

Yeah right, demon—think you can drag me into a corner. Think again.

But if we’re going to assume I’ve contacted a Round Table ghost, my best guess as to which ghost it is, due to the “H” and the brief pause on “R,” is: Harold Ross, founder of the New Yorker who earlier clicked “maybe” on my Natural Rose Quartz Crystal Pendulum 12 Facet Reiki Charged invite.

Hey—hey, Harold. I like the New Yorker and, I’ll tell you what, I even have a subscription. What do you think about that? Harold?

“Is this Harold Ross?” I asked the board.

No response.

I moved the planchette in circles to warm it up a little. “Is this Harold Ross?” I asked again, to, hmm, very little response. Just a slight shift in the direction of the “Ouija” logo. Not helpful. So I took out my Reiki Charged Crystal and asked that if it was goddamn Harold Ross. And guess what?

Very clear “yes” from the crystal.

Well, well, well. “How are you, Harold Ross?” I asked the board. No response. “Are you doing well?” I then asked, hoping “yes” or “no” answers would get a better response. Slowly, and because I think I was pushing it, the planchette moved towards “yes.”

:)

Very quickly I realized that I didn’t really have any questions prepared for Harold Ross, nor could I come up with any off of the top of my head. “Do you...like the New Yorker...now?” I asked. Slowly the planchette moved toward the bottom, and toward the right, before landing on the number eight. OK, “eight.” Then it fell off of the board.

“Do you like Gawker?” Quickly it moved to the number four, before, whoops, again, it fell off of the board. What the hell, man. “Four?” I asked. “What do you mean ‘four’?” I set it back in the center and it moved to four again, before falling off of the board again.

Fine.

“Who do you want to win the 2016 presidential election?”

No response.

Here’s a video of me using the Ouija board, pretty clearly moving it myself, alone, at 5 a.m.:

Update: 6:15 a.m.

This is my final dispatch from my stay at the Algonquin Hotel. As I lie in bed, the room dark save for the light of my computer screen and the green light of the Ghost Meter, which has yet to beep since I’ve been in my room, I’m left to wonder: Will a ghost ever show me its little ghostly goddamn face even once in my stupid life?

A good question, worthy of my new dead New York media ghost friends who think they are all so clever, with their witticisms, and sly, with their refusing to appear before me. I don’t know the answer. You don’t know the answer—unless you are a ghost who is about to surprise me. The only person who knows the answer is:

Future me.

Or:

A ghost—some other ghost, other than you, if you are one.

And there you have it.

As Dorothy Parker once said, I’m sure:

“Goodnight.”

Image via Getty. GIF by Jim Cooke. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

Witnesses say a double suicide bomb attack killed dozens inside a mosque in Maiduguri, reports The Guardian. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the report mentions that Boko Haram recently claimed responsibility for suicide attacks that killed 18 and injured another 41 outside Abuja.

The number of dead is disputed by police, who so far have reported 14 fatalities. The mosque collapsed following the explosions, causing an unknown number of further casualties.

The bombers slipped into the mosque disguised as worshippers, said witnesses, adding that one of the attackers set off the first blast when he entered the mosque. The second bomber detonated his explosives soon after, when many had rushed to the scene to help the first victims.

“When rescuers and sympathisers gathered in front of the place, the second one went off, killing many of them,” said Marte.

Despite boasts from the Nigerian military that Boko Haram has been substantially weakened, violent attacks continue. The group is suspected in a suicide attack carried out by as many as five individual bombers in a refugee camp in Chad on Saturday, according to the BBC.

President Obama notified Congress on Wednesday of his plan to send 300 troops to neighboring Cameroon to bolster on-the-ground intelligence in the regional conflict against Boko Haram. White House spokesman Josh Earnest described the deployment as part of “a broader regional effort to stop the spread of Boko Haram and other violent extremist organizations in West Africa,” reports Yahoo. It’s hard to square that explanation and the recent attacks with Nigeria’s assertion that Boko Haram is “a spent force.”

[Guardian] [BBC] [Yahoo]

When an American tank forced its way onto the grounds the Kunduz trauma hospital in Afghanistan destroyed in an airstrike earlier this month on Thursday, The Guardian reports, it may have destroyed evidence of potential war crimes.

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In a statement after Thursday’s “intrusion,” MSF said that they were told that the tank had been carrying investigators from the U.S.-NATO-Afghan coalition: “Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear.”

Ten patients and 12 staff members of Médécins sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors without Borders, were killed in the October 3rd attack. According to an Associated Press report earlier on Thursday, U.S. intelligence analysts knew that the target of the attack was a hospital.

http://gawker.com/ap-u-s-intelli...

Meanwhile, the International Humanitarian Fact Finding Committee (IHFFC), an independent humanitarian commission created under the Geneva Conventions in 1991, is waiting for confirmation from the United States and Afghan governments that they will cooperate with an independent investigation.

“The commission has already offered its services to the governments of the USA and Afghanistan,” a Swiss foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters in an email on Wednesday. “Any investigation would require the agreement of both governments, however.”

“We have received apologies and condolences, but this is not enough. We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour,” Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF’s International President, said. “We need to understand what happened and why.”

Reuters reports that a White House spokesman said that Obama—who apologized to MSF last week—assured Liu that a U.S. investigation would “provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting” of the attack.

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

A 20-year-old Ohio man already on electronic monitoring for a previous conviction for abduction-related charges allegedly lured a 14-year-old girl to his home, where he kept her against her will and repeatedly raped her over a period of months, reports the Associated Press.

Cody Lee Jackson pleaded not guilty to abduction charges in 2014 after allegedly holding two women against their will in a hotel in Blue Ash, Ohio, and was released on $100,000 bond and placed on electronic monitoring at his home in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati. From there he allegedly made contact with a 14-year-old girl via Facebook and used a taxi service to transport her on multiple occasions, for sex.

From the report:

By March, he would no longer let her leave his apartment “unless it was with him or at his direction,” according to federal documents. He punished her physically for violations of rules he set for her that included no talking to other men and no showering or using the restroom without permission, the documents say. She became pregnant after being at Jackson’s apartment for nearly two months, authorities said in the affidavit.

The Daily Beast reports that Jackson’s behavior turned frightening even before the ultimate alleged abduction of his victim:

Jackson destroyed her cellphone and replaced it with a flip phone. He changed her Facebook password and the e-mail connected to it, so only he could log in. Then he started making her adhere to a list of “rules,” including one that she must stay home after school and wait for his call, court papers state.

Jackson allegedly recruited a 20-year-old woman to act as his surrogate and whisk the girl away from his apartment during routine checks from monitoring officials. The Daily Beast’s report states that this woman was the mother of “one of Jackson’s children.”

Jackson finally entered a guilty plea in the 2014 case and was taken off electronic monitoring, whereupon he fled Ohio prior to an August sentencing date, leaving his alleged victim to finally return home to her family. But physical distance didn’t stop Jackson from being an allegedly predatory piece of shit:

The documents also say Jackson allegedly reached out to the girl by cellphone after he left Ohio and threatened to kill her and her family if she didn’t take sexually explicit photos of herself and send them to him on Facebook, where he allegedly used his Facebook accounts to transfer the pornographic images.

Jackson turned up last week in Utah, where he reportedly had a run in with drug task force officers and attempted to flee after giving a fake name during a routine stop:

He is to be brought back to Ohio for sentencing on the interference conviction and to face numerous federal and state charges stemming from his alleged crimes while on electronic monitoring.

State and federal charges against Jackson include coercion, enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, production of child pornography, rape, kidnapping, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and interference with custody.

From Cody Lee Jackson’s Facebook page.

The Daily Beast reports Jackson was posting shirtless selfies to Facebook during his time on the lam, and was living off of cash wired to him by his father.

[AP] [Daily Beast]

The Nevada Gaming Control Board offered perhaps the most significant rebuke of daily fantasy sports operators today in a month full of them, finding that daily fantasy sports constitutes gambling. The Gaming Control Board wrote that because daily fantasy sports involves “wagering on the collective performance of individuals participating in sporting events,” daily fantasy sites must obtain licensing from the Nevada Gaming Commission to continue operating.

This presents a problem for DraftKings, FanDuel, and other daily fantasy operators. If they wanted to keep their games open to Nevada’s nearly three million residents, they could surely jump through the necessary hoops to secure regulatory approval. But doing so would admit that daily fantasy is gambling, a distinction daily fantasy operators are desperate to avoid. Therefore, Nevada will become the 12th state in which at least one of the major daily fantasy websites are banned.

Nevada is just a single (small) state, and daily fantasy sites will still make gobs of money without it. But Nevada certainly wields outsized influence in matters of gambling, and this is an especially unwelcome time for this ruling considering that both the FBI and the Department of Justice have opened probes into the legality of daily fantasy.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board, of course, isn’t an uninterested observer in the matter. The entire economy of Nevada—and Las Vegas especially—will benefit if daily fantasy sports is considered gambling. Besides another entity for state agencies to regulate, if daily fantasy is found to be on the wrong side of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, one of Vegas’s biggest competitors is taken out.

This finding doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. According to the Law Vegas Review-Journal, earlier this year the Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman warned casinos to be very careful about legal issues if getting involved in daily fantasy, and casino and sports book owners have publicly said that daily fantasy is gambling.

You can read the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s full ruling below.

Update (10:25 p.m.): So far eight daily fantasy sites—including FanDuel but not including DraftKings—have said that they are pulling out of Nevada. Here is FanDuel’s full statement:

On behalf of our users in Nevada, FanDuel is terribly disappointed that the Nevada Gaming Control Board has decided that only incumbent Nevada casinos may offer fantasy sports. This decision stymies innovation and ignores the fact that fantasy sports is a skill-based entertainment product loved and played by millions of sports fans. This decision deprives these fans of a product that has been embraced broadly by the sports community including professional sports teams, leagues and media partners. We are examining all options and will exhaust all efforts to bring the fun, challenge and excitement of fantasy sports back to our Nevada fans. In the interim, because we are committed to ensuring we are compliant in all jurisdictions, regrettably, we are forced to cease operations in Nevada.

Photo via Shutterstock; image by Jim Cooke.

E-mail: kevin.draper@deadspin.com | PGP key + fingerprint | DM: @kevinmdraper

Customers shopping at a Target located in Campbell, California were shocked when audio from a porno began playing over the store’s loudspeakers. Gina Young, a woman who was shopping in the store with her two young sons, filmed footage of the incident and posted it on her Facebook. In the clip, moaning sounds and sexually explicit language emit loudly from the store’s speakers.

According to the New York Post, Target is currently investigating, but is offering no details. “People were up in arms. Some people threw their things down and walked out. Others were yelling at employees,” Young wrote on Facebook. “Employees were running around everywhere. Picking and hanging up phones, which worked….for about two minutes before it started up again.”

Another customer told KCBS, “I felt violated, and my body said wait a minute, this ain’t right. So I was uneasy.” Interestingly, this isn’t the first time an incident like this has occurred at Target. The same thing happened at another California location in July. Customers were evacuated from the San Luis Obispo store until they figured out how to turn off the speakers. No word on whether the two incidents are related, but it sounds like the inner workings of a very creative prankster.

Uproxx points out that a popular adult website called GameLink.com has offered to help Target find the movie responsible for its accidental shopping soundtrack. If only there were some sort of a porn-themed Shazam app to assist with that.

Contact the author at marie.lodi@jezebel.com.

Image via Shutterstock.

The New York Times has an extensive piece documenting the various, conflicting accounts of the beating death of Lucas Leonard at the cultish Word of Life church in Chadwicks, New York, on Monday.

Leonard, 19, died after what District Attorney Scott McNamara of Oneida County said was a 10-hour-long attack beginning on Sunday night and lasting until Monday morning. His brother Christopher, 17, is still in the hospital recovering from his injuries. Their parents have been charged with manslaughter and their half-sister has been charged with assault.

According to the Times, authorities said the beating began after the church’s 29-year-old pastor, Tiffanie Irwin, called a meeting to address the boys’ loyalty to the church. Irwin’s mother, Traci, is the congregation’s spiritual leader. But defense lawyers for the boys’ parents, Bruce Leonard, 65, and Deborah Leonard, 59, disputed this account.

A lawyer for Deborah Leonard, Devin Garramone, told the Times, “It had something to do with the boys maybe touching some of the other children in the church.”

“They were being confronted to confess their sins and to repent,” Garramone said. “What started as some mild flogging spun out of control into something much more violent.”

New Hartford Police Department spokesman Lt. Timothy O’Neill said that this account was “completely unfounded.”

“There’s been no evidence whatsoever to suggest there was any molestation committed by either of these young men,” O’Neill told the Times.

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

Everyone’s favorite just-this-side-of-legal drug kingpin Martin Shkreli is very upset with Bernie Sanders after the presidential candidate declined a $2,700 donation Shkreli made in September and gave it to a Washington health clinic instead.

Last month, Shkreli jacked up prices 4,000 percent on daraprim, the only available treatment for toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction. The next day, Sanders, in his capacity as the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, sent Shkreli a letter informing him that his company and the sudden price increase were under investigation and requesting that certain documents and information be turned over by October 9th.

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On September 28, Shkreli donated $2,700 (the maximum individual contribution) to the Sanders campaign. He donated the money, he told the Boston Globe, as much to get the senator’s attention as because he supports his policies.

“I’d ask him, what role does innovation play in health care?” Shkreli said. “Is he willing to sort of accept that there is a tradeoff, that to take risks for innovation, companies have to invest lots of money and they need some kind of return for that, and what does he think that should look like?”

“I think it’s cheap to use one person’s action as a platform without kind of talking to that person,” Shkreli told the Globe. “He’ll take my money, but he won’t engage with me for five minutes to understand this issue better.”

On Thursday, the Sanders campaign announced that it would be making a donation in the same amount to Washington’s Whitman-Walker health clinic. “We are not keeping the money from this poster boy for drug company greed,” campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said.

Meanwhile, the deadline, last Friday, for responding to the senator’s letter came and went without a response, Business Insider reported. As of Wednesday, according to CNBC, the drug’s price remained well above $700 per pill.

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