Ben Carson’s campaign has denied a key assertion in The Politico’s story about Carson’s relationship with the West Point military academy, calling the paper’s reporting an “outright lie.”

http://gawker.com/ben-carson-adm...

The story, published Friday, concerns two anecdotes Carson has written about in at least two of his books: 1) meeting a high-ranking general as a teenage ROTC student and 2) being offered, and ultimately declining, a scholarship to West Point.

In his best-selling novel, “In Gifted Hands,” Carson describes meeting General William Westmoreland in 1969. In the passage, he clearly describes seeing the general at a Michigan parade and describes having dinner with him after the event. “Later,” Carson writes, “I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.”

At the end of my twelfth grade I marched at the head of the Memorial Day parade. I felt so proud, my chest bursting with ribbons and braids of every kind. To make it more wonderful, we had important visitors that day. Two soldiers who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Viet Nam were present. More exciting to me, General William Westmoreland (very prominent in the Viet Nam war) attended with an impressive entourage. Afterward, Sgt. Hunt introduced me to General Westmoreland, and I had dinner with him and the Congressional Medal winners. Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going. As overjoyed as I felt to be offered such a scholarship, I wasn’t really tempted. The scholarship would have obligated me to spend four years in military service after finishing college, precluding my chances to go on to medical school. I knew my direction – I wanted to be a doctor, and nothing would divert me or stand in the way. Of course the offer of a full scholarship flattered me. I was developing confidence in my abilities – just like my mother had been telling me for at least he past ten years.

West Point tuition, it should be noted, is free. And nowhere in the passage does Carson specifically indicate he applied for admission—an assertion he seems to preclude when he writes, later in the book, that he applied to only one school, which was Yale.

But to the lay reader, Carson’s claim that he was offered a “full scholarship” indicates he either applied and was accepted and offered a full scholarship, or that the general offered him something exceptional. Which is what the campaign “would argue strongly” is precisely what happened.

“He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors. They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission,” Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennett clarified in a statement Friday forwarded to Gawker by Carson’s deputy press secretary, Stephanie Marshall. “There are ‘Service Connected’ nominations for stellar High School ROTC appointments. Again he was the top ROTC student in Detroit. I would argue strongly that an Appointment is indeed an amazing full scholarship. Having ran several Congressional Offices I am very familiar with the Nomination process.”

Carson, in an interview Friday with the New York Times, suggests something slightly different: “It was, you know, an informal ‘with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point.’”

Whether Carson was actually offered some sort of special appointment or was merely told he would get in if he applied, it does seem clear at least part of the anecdote contradicts public records. According to Politico, Army records show the general was playing tennis in Washington D.C. the day of the parade in question.

Again, the Carson campaign has an explanation—Carson doesn’t remember exactly what happened.

“Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit,” Bennett said. “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.”

Did Carson exaggerate the story or are readers willfully misinterpreting his language? It depends on who you ask.

But here’s a problem that seems less ambiguous: Politico specifically claims in their story that Carson’s campaign admitted the story was false. The paper does not provide a direct quote to support the contention.

“When presented with these facts, Carson’s campaign conceded the story was false,” Politico reports in a line still included in the story, which has been edited since its publication.

That contention, Carson spokesperson Doug Watts tells CNN, is an “outright lie.”

“The campaign never ‘admitted to anything,’” Bennett says.

Requests for comment from the author of the Politico piece, Kyle Cheney, were not immediately returned.

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

Last week, Austin, Texas, and surrounding communities found themselves flooded after a relentless thunderstorm dropped more than a foot of rain in just a few hours. This astounding rainfall event was the result of a phenomenon known as “training,” and as Austin saw, training can lead to devastating results.

Size Matters

While the distinctions don’t seem like much while we’re dodging hailstones and fleeing lightning strikes, there are three different types of thunderstorms, ranging from everyday occurrences to rare monsters.

The most prevalent type of thunderstorm we experience is known as a “single cell,” which are those small storms that pop up, pour for a few minutes, and then fizzle out, leaving behind clearing skies and stifling humidity.

The least common, on the other hand, is called a supercell, which features a tilted, rotating updraft that acts like an engine, allowing the storm to grow up to the size of an entire county and survive for many hours in the most extreme cases.

While they produce stunning landscapes (like the one above), supercells are also very dangerous; the violent processes within a supercell can generate hail larger than softballs, destructive winds, and tornadoes. The majority of supercells don’t produce tornadoes, but in the right environment, it’s this kind of storm that’s responsible for producing those EF-5s that can wipe a home clean from its foundation.

That brings us to the middle category, that in-between, kind of gray area where multiple thunderstorms develop and feed off of one another in an intricate process that can cause all sorts of problems. These storms, known as multicell storms, are probably most familiar to us as a squall line, or a line of connected thunderstorms that move in the same direction at the same speed. The strongest squall lines are called “derechos” when they produce destructive winds over a path hundreds of miles. The above radar image shows the June 29, 2012, derecho as it raced through Ohio on its way toward the Mid-Atlantic coast.

Battle Between Good and Evil

Last week, a cold front extending off of a low pressure system in the Atlantic Ocean dove south across the far southern extents of the United States. This boundary of drier, cooler air invading from Canada crashed into warm, humid air fed by the Gulf of Mexico to its south.

By the time the front reached Texas, it was several thousand miles away from its parent low pressure system, so it started to slow down and eventually stall out over central Texas. This created a stationary front, or a boundary between warm/humid and cool/dry that barely budges.

That front was pretty sharp—the dew point in San Antonio was 75°F, while the dew point was just 67°F a few miles north in Austin. That doesn’t seem like much—both are muggy—but it illustrates how dramatic the weather can change depending on which side of the front you’re on.

Meanwhile, widespread showers and thunderstorms broke out across Texas in this unstable environment, including some moving toward the two cities in the center of the state.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

A thunderstorm derives its energy from an updraft, a process generated when unstable air rapidly rises up through the atmosphere. When the updraft grows strong enough, it can sustain immense amounts of water up in the clouds, and the sheer weight of this suspended water will eventually overwhelm the updraft and begin to fall toward the ground.

One of the great things about a thunderstorm on a hot day is that it can cause the temperature to plummet once it starts raining. This natural air conditioning is called a downdraft, or rain-cooled air sinking from the thunderstorm to the ground. Since cooler air is more stable than warm air, this cooler air usually chokes off the storm’s updraft, starving it of energy and forcing it to dissipate.

That doesn’t always happen, though.

Hey mobile users: the above .gif is 5.39 megabytes, so be mindful if you choose to load it.

Sometimes, this pool of cold air will radiate away from the storm like a cold front, producing a feature known as an outflow boundary. As this outflow boundary collides with unstable air ahead of it, it can force this air to rise and create more updrafts, creating new thunderstorms along its path. It’s very common to see this occur around the Gulf Coast—which is why places like Mobile and New Orleans can see a storm every afternoon for months on end—but this is also how squall lines develop.

Rarely, the outflow boundary will move in the opposite direction of the thunderstorm, causing the storm to “back-build” as if they’re being generated from a single spot (there’s a conspiracy theory for you!).

Imagine a day where there are stiff southerly winds blowing hot and humid air through your town. A thunderstorm bubbles up over your town and pours for a little while. The southerly winds blow that storm off to the north, but that storm’s outflow boundary moves back to the south. The outflow boundary creates a new thunderstorm that bubbles up right over your town (again!), and the process repeats for a couple of hours, dumping endless amounts of heavy rain that overflow your backyard rain gauge and turn your street into a river.

This process is called “training,” so called because the thunderstorms look like they’re train cars moving along railroad tracks. Training can continue for hours, forcing a few unlucky areas to get caught under this relentless heavy rain until the air stabilizes and the storm development stops.

The NWS office in Binghamton, New York, uploaded the above radar clip to YouTube a few months ago, showing a training complex of thunderstorms over Delaware County, New York, back in June 2007. The training occurs in the white circle, where six to eight inches of rain fell in just a couple of hours. The resulting floods killed two people, destroyed dozens of homes, washed out two bridges, and caused millions of dollars in damage.

The storms’ development is so sustained over one spot that it looks like they aren’t moving at all.

Austin Under Water

The training complex of thunderstorms that struck the Austin area wasn’t as photogenic as the radar loop above, but it was enough to cause significant problems, dropping more than a foot of rain in six hours.

Hey mobile users: the above .gif is 6.84 megabytes, so be mindful if you choose to load it.

Not only do outflow boundaries serve as a focus for thunderstorm development, but so too do large-scale fronts, like the stationary front that was draped across the region the morning of the flooding. The stationary front, along with outflow boundaries from nearby storms, allowed a large thunderstorm to persist over the Austin’s southern suburbs for most of the morning of Friday, October 30, producing more rain than natural and man-made drainage systems could handle.

The flooding was brutal. Six people died as a result of the rising waters, and neighborhoods that had never flooded before saw standing water from this event. The rain was so bad that even the weather nerds themselves weren’t safe—the weather station at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was knocked offline after it became submerged, and the airport’s air traffic control facility is still closed because of flood damage.

While the flooding in Austin saw the brunt of the coverage from this event, they didn’t even see the greatest totals. Eastern Texas and most of Louisiana experienced even heavier rainfall from the same system, dropping up to 20 inches of rain in a couple of spots.

Training thunderstorms are often the cause of some of the worst flooding disasters possible, and believe it or not, the phenomenon isn’t all that uncommon. Training is usually much less intense, but it can still cause localized flooding even when it doesn’t drop an ocean of rain in just a couple of hours.

[Top Image: Getty Images | Supercell Image: Kelly DeLay via Flickr | Squall Line Radars: Gibson Ridge | Austin Radar/Precip Map: Author | Surface Analysis: WPC]

Email: dennis.mersereau@gawker.com | Twitter: @wxdam

My new book, The Extreme Weather Survival Manual, is now available! You can order it from Amazon and find it on the shelves and websites of retailers near you.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has suspended all flights into Egypt amid reports that the flight recorder from Metrojet Flight 9268 contains data that “strongly favors” theories that a bomb brought down the passenger jet.

France 2 TV, an affiliate of Sky News and CNN, spoke to an investigator with access to the black box who claimed an explosion can be heard just before the recording ends. The AFP and BBC have similar reports, with the AFP citing a source who says the data indicates “a very sudden explosive decompression,” and the BBC quoting a source who said there’s intercepted “chatter” that confirms the bombing.

From the AFP:

The flight data and voice recorders showed “everything was normal” until both failed at 24 minutes after takeoff from the Sharm el-Sheikh resort Saturday, pointing to “a very sudden explosive decompression,” one source said.

The Islamic State group claimed it down the plane, providing no details, saying it was retaliation for Russian air strikes in Syria.

The data “strongly favours” the theory a bomb on board brought down the plane, the source added.

Earlier today, Putin halted all Russian flights into Egypt, leaving an estimated 50,000 Russian tourists temporarily stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh. The U.K. has also suspended flights into the country, with an estimated 19,000 British tourists remaining in the resort town, according to the BBC.

The St. Petersburg-bound Metrojet flight crashed Saturday just 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the blast, though no evidence has been presented by the group to support their claims.

http://gawker.com/reports-u-s-in...

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

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones released a statement tonight reiterating the team’s support for defensive end Greg Hardy after Deadspin published an account of Hardy’s alleged assault of ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder. That story was based upon hundreds of pages of police reports and court documents, many never before seen, as well as dozens of photos of the injuries Holder allegedly suffered at the hands of Hardy.

http://deadspin.com/this-is-why-nf...

Jones claims that the Cowboys had not seen the photos of Holder’s injuries prior to signing Hardy to a one-year, $11.3 million contract, but that the team was “aware of the serious nature of this incident.”

Here’s the full statement, via Ian Rapoport:

“While we did not have access to the photos that became public today, we were and are aware of the serious nature of this incident. We as an organization take this very seriously. We do not condone domestic violence. We entered into the agreement with Greg fully understanding that there would be scrutiny and criticism. We have given Greg a second chance. He is a member of our team and someone who is grateful for the opportunity he has been given to move forward with his life and his career.”

Jones’s support of Hardy doesn’t come as a surprise. The Cowboys declined to comment on Deadspin’s story when contacted, but have stood behind him since his signing earlier this year. Just 11 days ago, after Hardy blew up at a special teams coach on the sideline, Jones told reporters in a surreal interview that Hardy was “one of the real leaders on this team.”

Jones and his son Stephen—the team’s executive vice president—have both said that they want to sign Hardy to a long-term deal.

Photo via AP

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

Two of the officers involved in the unexplained shooting that killed six-year-old Jeremy Mardis in Marksville, Louisiana have been arrested and charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, according to multiple reports.

The officers are 23-year-old Norris Greenhouse Jr., a reserve officer, and 32-year-old Lt. Derrick Stafford. Colonel Mike Edmonson called the body camera footage of the incident, which has not been described in detail or released, “the most disturbing thing I’ve seen, and I will leave it at that.”

Added to the list of statements walked back from the original explanation is this: Edmonson said he was aware of no warrant being served to Few by the marshals, according to a report by The Guardian. Chris Few, Mardis’s father and the driver of the car, was reportedly not being served a warrant, he was apparently not backing his car into police, and he was definitely not armed. At least 18 shots were fired into the driver side of his car.

Few’s 57-year-old stepfather, Morris German, has accused the marshals of indiscriminately opening fire on the vehicle. German said Few was heavily sedated in hospital, unable to talk and had bullet fragments lodged in his brain and lung. He described Few as a loving father and added the man’s son “was his whole life”.

Colonel Edmonson has not ruled out additional arrests in the case. The other two officers involved in the incident are reported as Lt. Jason Brouillette and Sgt. Kenneth Purnell, according to a Daily Mail report.

The investigation is ongoing, and few details of what took place are being released. It’s noteworthy, though, and in a grimly encouraging way, that this has so far been a serious, decisive police investigation of the bad behavior of other police.

UPDATE: Here’s video of Colonel Mike Edmonson’s announcement of the charges:

[The Guardian] [Daily Mail] [New York Daily News]

Images via AP

h/t Jaw1love

The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, the U.S. military prison where detainees have reported horrific accounts of abuse and torture, is finally expected to close after a long delay. According to The New York Times, a Pentagon plan outlining the closure is expected in the coming week.

The remaining detainees will likely be transferred to Centennial Correctional Facility in Colorado or other sites in South Carolina and Kansas. The plan reportedly details transportation and facilities costs that may go along with the detainees if moved.

The selection of a U.S. prison to take the Guantanamo detainees would first require congressional approval, which lawmakers have said is not likely to happen.

The facility, which Amnesty International once called the “Gulag of our times,” now holds 112 detainees, with 53 are eligible for transfer.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

An infamous American myth, heralded by politicians for centuries, holds that George Washington, at the tender age of six, admitted his guilt by saying “I cannot tell a lie” after hacking down his father’s cherry tree. Ben Carson, it seems, has not heard this story.

Just a day after the candidate’s claims to a full scholarship to West Point were called into question, a revealing series of fact-checks by The Wall Street Journal shows that like Washington, Ben Carson may not be the “most honest” politician, either.

The story, besides mentioning the beautiful detail that Carson wore a pocket protector and tie to class every day, reveals quite a few inconsistencies in the tales he’s told over the years. One of them involves him being crowned the “most honest” student in the land.

The Republican presidential candidate told the story of an elaborate hoax in his 1990 autobiography, “Gifted Hands.” Carson described a Yale psychology professor who told students that all of their final exam papers had accidentally caught on fire, and that they must all re-take the new, much harder exam. According to Carson, a junior at the time of the story, all 150 students refused but one. That one was the chosen one, the honest one: a young Ben Carson.

“The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture. ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’”

The class, according to Carson, was called Perceptions 301. The Yale Library confirmed to Wall Street Journal that no such class existed during Carson’s tenure at Yale, and the photo that Carson claims was taken of the incident cannot be found.

Perhaps, though, this was a double-hoax, and we have all been out-hoaxed by the ultimate hoaxman himself: Ben Carson.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

The government of Spain, in a desperate effort to sell two Ferraris given as gifts to former King Juan Carlos, received a single bid for the cars on Saturday. At less than half of the price of 350,000 euros ($400,000) for each car, the sale did not go through, and officials have yet to say what will happen to the cars. What’s a government to do with a pair of unwanted Ferraris these days?

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a man not really known for a cool demeanor, is totally cool with being “transferred” off the main stage for Tuesday’s GOP debate — in fact, he says it’s not even a demotion so don’t worry about it because he’s not worried about it at all.

The presidential candidate told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” that it’s honestly like, no big deal to him.

“I don’t see it as a big blow at all, and I don’t see it as a demotion. I see it as a transfer. The fact is, we’re going to be on the stage. We’re going to be debating. People are going to be watching. And, most importantly, Jake, you are going to be watching. And if I do really well, you are going to report on it, the same way you have reported on it in debates one, two and three.”

You can watch the interview in full here. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was also moved to the kid’s table for the upcoming debate.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

Welcome to the Saturday of our discontent. It’s been a week since the love between ‘90s teen icon Gwen Stefani and the human embodiment of a bottle of AXE body spray on fire (that would be Blake Shelton) has been thrust into our unwilling faces and we’re reaching peak saturation. That means it’s time for exes to weigh in, and Gavin Rossdale has entered the ring! According to TMZ, he’s not buying what The Voice’s newest power couples is selling.

TMZ just reported that Rossdale, who’s allegedly really mad at Stefani, doesn’t believe that his ex just started seeing Shelton. In fact, Rossdale reportedly believes that Stefani’s trying to make him out to be the bad guy when in reality she’s the controlling monster who never let him do anything. Why? Because of money, of course.

We’re told Gavin believes Gwen was painting him as a bad guy for cover ... he thinks she was worried he’d take her to the cleaners if he found out she had already hooked up with Blake.

And because celebrity feuds are everyone’s business this holiday season, here’s what sources told TMZ about Gwen and Gavin’s relationship:

And our sources say Gavin’s gripes go beyond Blake. He can’t believe she’s calling him a control freak, because she demanded he NOT go on tour out of paranoia he’d cheat on her. He says she browbeat him into staying home, which greatly impeded his ability to make money. As one source said, “She just didn’t let him work.”

And finally, we’re told he’s indignant she recorded a “woe is me” song, “Used to Love You,” in which she cries, “Nobody taught you how to love.” We’re told Gavin’s scoffing at the lyrics, saying he was good enough for her for a long time.

This is Rossdale right now:

Rossdale also doesn’t believe that Shelton’s marriage to Miranda Lambert ending right before he started dating Gwen is coincidental. Really feeling for the guy, but we still haven’t heard from the one person to whom this would matter most: Ariel Schrag. The artist once centered an entire graphic novel about how much Stefani meant to her as a teenager (it’s really good) and I bet she. is. devastated. by this. Just like I was when Brad and Jen broke up. I still get teary when that question comes up in Trivial Pursuit. [TMZ]

This is all of us right now:

According to Us Weekly, this is Farrah Abraham’s most shocking look yet.

What’s the shocking part, though? The lack of makeup or that anyone would allow themselves to be photographed in this shade of purple when it’s obviously not their color? Also, I once took a picture with Farrah surrounded by plastic recreations of her vagina. While she beat me over the head with her blowup doll. Pardon me if I consider this a little tame. [Us]

Tim Gunn on Kanye and The Kardashians (which would make a really good band name):

“I think [Kanye’s new fashion line is] a bunch of dumb clothes. Just basic pieces… He won’t [like that comment], but let me tell you, the whole Kardashian clan doesn’t like me, so no surprise there,” he said.

Oh shit, there’s more:

“There are large issues [with the Kardashians] for me, such as why? Why! But when it comes to fashion I say to people all the time, if you want guidance in fashion, just consider this: if a Kardashian is wearing it, don’t… I think it’s vulgar… Given the amount of public exposure that the Kardashians have to potentially be sending the message to people that you too can dress like this, no!”

• Katharine McPhee is still out there...doing something. The woman behind the brilliant pop anthem “Open Toes” (never forget) posed for a photo with Kate Walsh, who is also out there doing something. I’d like to take this time to point out that I really, really wish Private Practice had been a good show, because it really, really wasn’t. [Just Jared]
  
• Jessa Duggar shared a picture of her new baby exclusively with People. Probably for money. #Blessed [People]
  
• Happy birthday to Stan’s dad, who turns 19 today. I offer a hearty “ya ya ya, I am Lorde” in celebration. [Famous Birthdays]
  
• Seth Rogen tweeted at my friend Jenn and she won’t stop texting me about it because “What is my life? What is my life?” And because it’s a slow celebrity news day (Just lots of blurry pictures from Kris Jenner’s birthday party this morning...), I’m passing the savings on to you. [Twitter]
  
• Taylor Hanson thinks Taylor Swift is pretty cool. [HuffPo]
  
• Gabourey Sidibe could not give less of a shit if you don’t like her sex scene on Empire. That’s because while you’re busy being a mean girl in high school, she’s busy working on living her best life. [Cosmo]
  
• Alex McCord might be having a stroke on social media. Could someone decipher this, please? [Twitter]
  
• Janet Jackson seems chill. [Page Six]
  
• Nancy Grace is getting a cooking show. On the menu? Justice and a lot of uncomfortable yelling. [Page Six]
  
• Wanna see Aaron Carter’s butt? [InTouch]
  
• Here is an entire catalog of Ashley Parker Angel’s naked selfies. I don’t know, either. I just accidentally went down a rabbit hole and had to share it with you because otherwise I’d loathe myself even more than I normally do. [JustJared]

The weekend is here! I am in Florida where I have already actively been inconvenienced by a manhunt. Here’s the best video on the internet:

Contact the author at mark.shrayber@jezebel.com.

Lead image via Getty

Ben Carson loves two people in this (and other) worlds: Jesus and Ben Carson. His house, naturally, reflects that.

The Guardian got inside his Maryland home to snap a really wonderful series of photos that are as unsettling as they are perfect. The walls are lined with awards, certificates and medals that the Republican presidential candidate has won in the past few years. Over his fireplace is hung a framed portrait of his idol, the neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

My personal favorite is the drawing of the surgeon as a young man, with a heavily robed and heavily wrinkled Jesus breathing heavily just over his shoulder.

See the entire gallery here for the rest of the Ben Carson Shrine Experience™.

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.

Need a little push to get off the couch, or just want to recreate a viral web stunt? The Fitbit Charge HR is the best fitness tracker for most people, and you can get one for just $115 today ($35 off), which is the best price we’ve ever seen by $10. Great gift idea [Fitbit Charge HR, $100]

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Even though they’re the previous generation models, GoPro’s Hero3+ cameras are still great action cams by any measure, and you can score huge discounts on refurbs today from GoPro’s official eBay store.

• Refurb GoPro HERO3+ Silver Edition ($159) | eBay
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If you don’t have a philosophical objection to selfie sticks, $5 for a Bluetooth model is about as cheap as they get. [Aukey Self-portrait Monopod Extendable Selfie Stick, $5 with code NIAQ6Y39]

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You’ve got two choices when it comes to checking on the progress of your dinner in the grill or oven. You could poke at it with a meat thermometer until you think it’s done, or you could sit on the couch and wait for your phone to tell you when it’s ready.

The highly-rated iDevices iGrill2 uses two temperature probes to track whatever you have in the oven or on the grill, and connects to your iPhone or Android device over Bluetooth to alert you as soon as it reaches the proper temperature.

Amazon has marked the thermometer down to just $66 today as part of a Gold Box, which is within a few bucks of all-time low. If you love gadgets, and you love cooking, I wouldn’t hesitate. [iDevices iGrill2 Bluetooth Thermometer, $66]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NC4KU42/...

Today only, Amazon’s taking up to 50% off select Adidas Boost running, basketball, and golf shoes. [Up to 50% off Select Adidas Boost Athletic Shoes]

These multi-port USB chargers are perfect for your desk, night stand, or travel bag, but at these prices, you should probably have one for each.

Mpow 40W/8A 5-Port Wall Charger ($15) | Amazon | Use code ZFWZV23J

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QBQP6L0

Lumsing 21W 4 Ports USB wall charger ($8) | Amazon | Use code 7V2YZIYM

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While it lacks the smartphone controls of Sphero’s BB-8, Hasbro’s model actually one-ups it with built-in sound effects, and a much lower price. It would normally set you back $80 at Target, but promo code BESTGIFT will bring that down to $60 today. [Hasbro BB-8, $60 with code BESTGIFT]

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/hasbros-remote...

Note: They’re out of stock online, but I was still able to purchase it online, and pick it up at my local Target. YMMV.

It’s getting a little chilly for ice cream (though with El Niño, who knows), but this highly-rated Cuisinart soft serve machine is down to its lowest price ever on Amazon today. The ICE-45 even includes three mix-in dispensers that automatically add sprinkles, chocolate chips, or other small extras to your treat. [Cuisinart ICE-45 Mix It In Soft Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice Cream Maker, $70]

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More Coverage

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If you’re planning on seeing Spectre or The Peanuts Movie this weekend, Fandango is currently taking $4 off two tickets to either film with promo code BOND. [Fandango]

More Deals

Tech

• Fitbit Charge HR ($100) | eBay
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• Aukey Self-portrait Monopod Extendable Selfie Stick ($5) | Amazon | Use code NIAQ6Y39
• Refurb GoPro HERO3+ Silver Edition ($159) | eBay
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• Refurb Beats Powerbeats 2 Wireless In-Ear Headphones ($90) | Woot
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• $100 off Select Smartphones | T-Mobile | Including the new iPhones

Home

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Teens trading nude pictures is nothing new, but parents, teachers, and administrators at a Colorado high school in Cañon City have been left in shock by the revelation that hundreds of naked pictures had been traded by students like Pokemon trading cards under their noses and without their knowledge.

The New York Times reports that authorities don’t know yet whether they’ll press child pornography charges against the participants (as many are minors themselves), but they do know that the high school’s football team is at the center of the sexting ring, which used “vault apps” to trade pictures of classmates.

From The New York Times:

[Superintendent] Mr. Welsh said a significant percentage of the student body at Cañon City High School had participated, with boys and girls involved in seemingly equal numbers. The photo-sharing, some of which took place in school, was done largely on cellphone applications called “vault apps” that look innocent enough — some look like calculators — but are really secret troves of photographs accessible after entering a password.

The photos weren’t just kids trading for fun, either. According to The Times, kids traded photos to rack up points, which allowed them to earn the respect and jealousy of their peers.

Students at the school described a competitive point system that classmates used to accrue photographs. Different point values were assigned to different students. Students who collected naked photographs gained points by adding these desirable children to their collections. Isaac Stringer, a junior interviewed outside the high school who said he did not participate in the photo-sharing, called the boy with the largest collection “the pimp of pictures.”

This is apparently not news to some parents. A mother interviewed by The Times said that she’d been speaking to the district since at least 2012 about the fact that students at the city’s middle school were trading nude photos after discovering some pictures of another child on her daughter’s phone. But, she says, officials didn’t or couldn’t do anything about it. The mother, Heidi Wolfgang, said she’s now home-schooling her child. “He told me there was nothing the school could do because half the school was sexting,” Ms. Wolfgang said about the response she received from a school counselor.

Now that the ring has been uncovered, school officials are scrambling to figure out next steps. While they’re deciding how they’ll go about keeping kids safe, however, there’s one thing all administrators agreed on: The school’s football team would not be playing their scheduled game this weekend.

From Superintendent Welsh’s statement:

“because a large number of our high school football players were implicated in this behavior, the coaching staff and administration, after careful thought and consideration, decided that stepping on the field to play this weekend to represent the Cañon City community is just not an option.”

Authorities will investigate whether adults were involved in the sexting ring and whether any of the students had been pressured or bullied into taking nude pictures of themselves and sharing them with others. No one, I think, would be surprised to learn that many teens weren’t willingly involved but felt they had to participate in order to fit in.

Contact the author at mark.shrayber@jezebel.com.

The prominent Russian media mogul who co-founded the news channel RT, Mikhail Lesin, has reportedly been found dead in a hotel room in Washington. ABC News reports that both Russian and U.S. officials confirmed Lesin’s death on Friday night.

The cause of death is still murky, but Russian sites are reporting that the 57-year-old died of “heart stroke.”

Lesin, formerly head of media affairs for the Russian government, was also a close advisor to President Vladimir Putin for years. He was most known for creating the English-language, government-sponsored network Russia Today, which, according to its site, “provides an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints an international audience with the Russian viewpoint.”

Lesin had been accused repeatedly of tightening censorship of the press in Russia. In 2014, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker called on the Department of Justice to investigate him for money laundering and corruption, claiming that Lesin had obtained $28 million worth of property and “multimillion dollar assets in Europe and the United States” during his time as a civil servant.

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

If this were a slasher film, one of the teenage protagonists, most likely a young girl running from a masked assailant who knew what she did last summer, would slip in the buffed and shiny halls of Main Street High, the camera zooming in on her screaming face as we brace for the inevitability of what will happen to her.

We know it’s coming because we’ve seen this film before, and we’ve watched it happen to lots of other people. But in the very last second, the camera fixated on the young girl’s pupils, she is rescued by the teenage boy protagonist who drags her to safety in one of the classrooms. Inside with the door locked, they use their fully charged iPhones to call the police who arrive almost instantly and who apprehend the serial killer. Yanking off his mask, the creepy, dark-haired neighbor is revealed. “If only it weren’t for you meddling kids,” he says. In the end, the two survivors, having evaded the killer with their wit and their clear skin, attend homecoming with each other where they are crowned King and Queen of Main Street High. It is a perfectly predictable forecast of their future life together.

But this is not a slasher film.

It is another ordinary day in a Spring Valley High classroom in South Carolina where men and boys watch the villain assault the young girl protagonist. No one saves her; she does not escape. The villain gets away.

It was also an ordinary day in Prairie View, Texas when Sandra Bland was stopped, accosted, and incarcerated by the villain. It was an ordinary day when she died while jailed in Waller County three days later. It was just an ordinary day on Chicago’s West Side when Rekia Boyd was shot and killed. In both instances, the villain got away.

But these, too, were not slashers film.

If they were, these young women would have been saved. The villains wouldn’t have gotten away with it. These young women would have survived, if only to spend the whole movie futilely begging white folks not to follow the suspicious sounds.

Slasher films, like most genre films, are fantasies with clear, predictable conventions. So, too, though, are our lives in a racially unequal and anti-black misogynist society. When an act of violence we should all find unjust and implausible occurs against a black person, we offer our same collective incredulous query, out loud and on social media and across dinner tables and in the quiet: “Would this have happened this way or that way if such-and-such were white?”

Despite the raucous to the contrary, the answer for most of us, most of the time, is “of course not,” either with some indignation, or resignation, or whatever we can muster in the moment. This is a common routine—this query, its response, and the uncomfortable veracity of the unchanging process—meant to shine the light on persistent racial inequality. But it does so through a post-racial sensibility, one outside the conventions of how our society operates, that assumes that all people are equal and are treated as such because of their statuses as human beings. What if, rather than seeing these moments when black citizens, even children—even girl children—are mistreated as out of the ordinary, we saw them instead as part of the normal conventions of an anti-black society, like the inexplicable but obligatory fall for a teenage girl protagonist in a slasher film?

Conventionally, the status of womanhood was explicitly reserved for white women, and that of ladyhood for those white women wealthy enough to own and oversee slaves through whatever means. Enslaved black women wrested as much of the trappings of ladyhood and womanhood as they could from the conventions of 19th century slave society, resisting and refusing, when prudent, treatment they knew was not befitting a woman or lady. Still, the kinds of labor in which they were forced to engage—their status as property and unfree—and the physical and sexual assault to which they were subjected at random and with impunity were constant reminders of their standing as non-women/girls and non-citizens.

After slavery, behind the paper-thin curtain that separated the South from the North, the convention was for white men, sometimes in groups, to kidnap and rape black girls and women, in addition to lynching them, threatening them, and otherwise violating their rights as citizens. White women, in closer proximity with black women in homes and kitchens, would mete out other kinds of daily violence while professing a kind of love for their domestic laborers. None of this was right or normal. But it was our convention.

In the context of a significant amount of gendered and racialized violence against black women from slavery to present, a most pernicious kind of ire and spite, one that holds them and their wombs or possible wombs responsible for all that is wrong in our nation, emerged. Disobedient enslaved women enraged exasperated mistresses to the point of necessary violence. Prostitute blues temptresses roamed rural roads thrusting themselves upon unsuspecting groups of white men. Welfare queens and baby mamas made new little inevitable welfare queens and baby mamas, so we are told to believe, that sat in Spring Valley High classrooms squandering our tax dollars and disrespecting authority with audacity and smartphones they haven’t earned. A black first “lady” wears her arms out and has an attitude and eyes people to her left and right without turning her head.

As particular manifestations of our convention—that of routine anti-black violence in general and a gendered anti-black misogynist violence in particular—slavery and Jim Crow have ended. But the metaphor of slavery and Jim Crow persist because the convention is rather stable. Whether we explain it with the empathy gap, social psychological difficulties in interracial interaction, the school-to-prison pipeline, or call it the “new” version of previous manifestations, the outcomes are consistent because the convention is.

Authoring a new convention for a nation built and still thriving upon this bloody and robust one is difficult work, but it is being done. One day, no one falls, the villain doesn’t get away, we save each other, and everyone makes it to the sequel.

Zandria F. Robinson is a writer and blogs at New South Negress. She is author of This Ain’t Chicago: Race, Class, and Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South.

It’s been a bad week for Yale.

It all began with an email sent to the student body by Yale Dean Burgwell Howard and the university’s Intercultural Affairs Council. The note, sent on Oct. 28, discouraged students from wearing culturally appropriative or insensitive Halloween costumes including ones that featured feathered headdresses, turbans, blackface and “war paint.” It read:

Yale is a community that values free expression as well as inclusivity. And while students, undergraduate and graduate, definitely have a right to express themselves, we would hope that people would actively avoid those circumstances that threaten our sense of community or disrespects, alienates or ridicules segments of our population based on race, nationality, religious belief or gender expression.

The email was quickly met with a response from an Associate Master at the school, Erika Christakis, also a child development specialist. In it, Christakis argued that students should be encouraged to dress in whatever costumes they chose, regardless of whether the costumes were offensive:

“Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?...Whose business is it to control the forms of costumes of young people? It’s not mine, I know that.”

Christakis’ husband, Master of Yale’s Silliman College Nicholas Christakis, defended his wife’s e-mails, according to Yale Daily News, telling a crowd that he stands “behind free speech.” Their sentiments were met with backlash from much of the student body, who have been gathering in large crowds to protest on campus this week. Students confronted Nicholas Christakis on campus on Thursday:

More than 700 Yale undergraduates, graduate students, alumni and faculty have signed an open letter saying that Christakis’ email equated “old traditions of using harmful stereotypes and tropes to further degrade marginalized people, to preschoolers playing make believe.” Others have called for both Christakis’ to apologize or resign. The protests on campus have gotten decidedly heated.

The situation has garnered attention on Twitter, with commenters criticizing the Christakis’ handling of the situation.

The timing of the incident is important, too — a week earlier, on Oct. 31, allegations were made against a Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity brother, saying that he turned away women of color from a Halloween party on Saturday night, saying they were admitting “white girls only.”

I’d just like to take a moment to give a shoutout to the member of Yale’s SAE chapter who turned away a group of girls from their party last night, explaining that admittance was on a “White Girls Only” basis; and a belated shoutout to the SAE member who turned me and my friends away for the same reason last year.

Details of the incident have been found difficult to prove in their entirety, but the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon organization said it is investigating the allegations.

On Friday Dean Holloway wrote an email to Yale students regarding the protests and their surrounding events, saying he “will enforce the community standards that safeguard you as members of this community.”

Yale University’s president also reportedly spoke to students in a closed-door meeting on Thursday night, apologizing to minority students at the school for failing to make them feel safe on campus, The Washington Post reports.

“I think we have to be a better university,” said President Peter Salovey. “I think we have to do a better job.”

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]

This post has been updated to include more details.

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

The Mighty Marysville, a 93-year-old plant in Marysville, Michigan, tooted its last toot on Saturday. The giant, which was closed in 2001, spewed dust across the St. Clair River.

Developers are now planning to use the space for property for stores, housing, a marina and bike trail. But nothing will be as spectacular as the Mighty Marysville.

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

The University of Missouri’s Legion of Black Collegians released a statement tonight from the collective athletes of color on the Tigers football team stating they are on strike from football-related activities until the school president steps down in the wake of several racist acts on campus.

Many Missouri students believe school president Tim Wolfe has failed to act in response to several months’ worth of alleged racism on the Columbia campus—the most recent and controversial of which was a swastika of human feces found in a residence hall. The debate is mostly happening over on Facebook, where views both nuanced and not can be found under the #concernedstudent1950 hashtag.

Update (10:00 p.m.): Defensive back John Gibson says the coaches fully support the effort.

Update (11:10 p.m.):

Photo credit: AP/L.G. Patterson

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com (PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.

That’s one way to beat the traffic! (L.A. joke.) This evening, numerous Angelenos have posted photos and videos of a mysterious object burning across the night sky. Is it aliens? Almost certainly, yes.

According to a vague Tweet from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the “UFO” was some sort of “Naval test fire.”

“No further details” is a sentence that is only written when additional details are necessary.

Did you see an alien in Los Angeles tonight? Seek help, and then email us the details.

Late Saturday night, enlarged pee-spattered Sno-Cone and presidential candidate Donald Trump will take the stage to host Saturday Night Live. Protesters from a coalition of Latino groups gathered outside the Trump Tower this evening and marched south to 30 Rockefeller Center to express their displeasure, some carrying signs in English and Spanish calling Trump “the face of racism.”

NBC is reportedly putting audience members through unusually tight security tonight, anticipating protests (although there is, as the Hollywood Reporter points out, no way to anticipate or preempt someone who plans to do a little yelling. The group Deport Racism has promised a $5,000 reward to someone who disrupts the broadcast.) And Trump seemed giddy with the prospect of even more attention:

Meanwhile, around 6 p.m., about 100 protesters from the Hispanic Federation, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) made the short march to 30 Rock, where they were ultimately joined by approximately another 200 people and some unusually relaxed NYPD officers.

“Hey hey, ho ho, racist Trump has got to go!” they yelled, and “Racismo, que odio, no es chistoso” (Racism, how hateful, it isn’t funny). Then, joyfully: “Live from New York, a racist piece of shit!”

“This has gone far enough,” a serious woman in her early 20s holding a “Basta Trump” sign told a TV news reporter. “He is just outrageous.”

“We’re here because we don’t think it’s right to give someone like Donald Trump a national platform to spread his message of racism,” said Gabriela Bermudez, 21. She stood in a pen with the other anti-Trump protesters; across the street, next to a pen holding the members of the press about seven pro-Trump activists, six white women and one black man in a fedora, tried their best.

“Speak English!” yelled one, a woman in a Make America Great Again hat, waving a sign that read “Build the Wall.” TV cameras quickly amassed around her. She beamed.

“Stop interviewing racists!” chanted the protesters across the street, so loudly and insistently the people holding the cameras started to look a little embarrassed. They started to drift away. A guy waving a sign that read “JEWS OWN COMCAST + NBC” wandered by; the top portion of his sign suggested we all “GOOGLE IT!!!” At some point, he hastily manufactured and affixed a back portion to the sign, reading “SNL = JEW PRODUCER.”

“Trump supporters are fascists,” an anti-Trump person called sweetly across the street at the Trump fans. From someone else: “I think you forgot your white hoods!”

A woman dressed as a sexy devil skated through the crowd on a pair of roller skates. “Congrats SNL,” her sign read, “Ratings hotter than hell.” She stood next to a guy in a disturbing old lady mask with a “1%” button on his lapel and a sign reading, “Get back in the kitchen.”

The NYPD officers near the press pen formed a chatty circle and had an animated conversation about power tools. The pro-Trump people, growing restive, started making plans to break out of their pen. “Let’s try to walk past them,” suggested a suspiciously blonde woman. The cops weren’t on board; the Trump crowd settled for parading slowly under the entrance to 30 Rock.

Across the street, the anti-Trump protesters chanted “Somos trabajadores, no somos criminales,” (We are workers, not criminals), and, after a moment, a rousing and heartfelt chant of “USA! USA!” The Trump fans, realizing belatedly that maybe that should’ve been their thing, quickly tried to counter with their own USA chant. For one moment, both sides of the street were in perfect unison.

Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
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