Warning Instagram fashion critics. Don’t take shots at Blake Lively. She might fire back like she did on Friday, after posting a picture of herself wearing a boisterous, plaid Roland Mouret suit
Lively, 30, even went self-deprecating in the caption with the laughing comment, “Picnic anyone? I’ll bring the tablecloth…”
But, as the @commentsbycelebs Instagram site pointed out, one user, @gabeluna, brought a fashion slam of sorts onto Lively.
“I say this with so much love & respect for you babe, please hire a stylist or fire the one you’re currently with,” @gabeluna wrote.
Lively, the style icon who doesn’t have a stylist, then surprised with a reply.
“Thank you for the tips, sir. Alas, I’ve tried to fire @blakelively so many times. But that (expletive) just keeps coming back. She won’t leave me alone.”
The rest of Lively’s Instagram account followers then proceeded to lambaste @gabeluna for his comment.
One notable Instagram user, Lively’s “Deadpool” husband Ryan Reynolds, did not weigh in. Yet.
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On September 1, 2015, shots were fired in front of a Bronx grocery store as a fight escalated between two rival street crews. As the crowd dispersed, a teen was caught in the crossfire, sustaining a gunshot wound to the ankle as a bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk. Law enforcement tried tracking down the shooter, and one name quickly rose out of the chaos: Pedro Hernandez. With two eyewitness accounts confirming him as the shooter, 15-year-old Hernandez was arrested and sent to Rikers Island in 2016.
There’s just one catch: Hernandez was innocent.
Hernandez’s arrest was a result of quota-based policing; eyewitness accounts were coerced. (The unjust policing practice was outlawed in 2010, yet police officers continue to be expected to maintain a certain number of arrests each month.) By the time he was arrested for the market shooting, Hernandez had already been arrested eight times in 2015 alone, with each charge being dropped due to insufficient evidence. He spent 12 months at the island jail awaiting trial, turning down plea deals and never wavering on his innocence.
The outcome of Hernandez’s case is explored in the new documentary, Crime + Punishment on Hulu. Along with Hernandez’s story, the illuminating film focuses on 12 whistleblower cops (known as the NYPD 12) and their highly publicized class-action lawsuit against the NYPD for racially discriminatory quota goals, which were outlawed in 2010, but continue to be an expectation of the job.
These cops were punished for refusing to falsely arrest the citizens they swore to protect. Crime + Punishment director Stephen Maing documented this over the course of four incredibly trying years, striving to bring a human perspective to a complex issue. “This is not a didactic film,” he tells EW. “This really is about the human experience, this is about the intimate access to these officers and families and the whole ecosystem of individuals who kind of contribute to this larger systemic movement.”
Maing captures the hardships each officer faces in an attempt to shed a light on the corruption that not only affects communities, but the officers who refuse to take part. One such officer is Sandy Gonzalez, a 12-year veteran of the force who was demoted for not complying with the quota policy. “They’re retaliating against me for my numbers,” Gonzalez can be heard saying over the phone to Maing in the film. He later agreed to let Maing film his first shift as a foot officer, a demotion which left him locked to a designated block for the entirety of his shift.
Crime + Punishment captures the moment in which Gonzalez is reprimanded unjustly by a fellow officer (who writes him up for a minor uniform violation). The experience is no different for the rest of the NYPD 12. They’re put on foot patrol and the night shift, ostracized by their fellow officers, and denied promotions, all for their refusal to commit an illegal act to keep up with a numbers game.
“When I saw firsthand this moment of retaliation over a full [eight]-hour shift — taxpayer dollars paying essentially for this cop to stand on a corner — I knew that this was sort of the beginning of something that felt [like] a really important public interest,” Maing explains.
One of the film’s most compelling characters is Manny Gomez, an ex-cop turned private investigator who tirelessly works to exonerate Hernandez and fight false, quota-driven cases. As Gomez works to prove Hernandez’s innocence, the audience gets an up-close look at the boys continuously targeted by these practices. It’s key to the documentary’s success: Walking around the Bronx in a triple-breasted suit, Gomez speaks with young men in the neighborhood, putting faces to the numbers and showing the true cost of revenue-driven arrests.
“Something I realized early was that if we could expand the burden of responsibility and liability [to the] other individuals pushing back against… the criminal justice system, against the NYPD, we could [create a] corroborating effect, [so] that the individual [NYPD 12] claim[s] could not be so easily dismissed by the city or department,” says Maing.
Maing intended to show that all of these claims were connected “and radiated out into the community and into the courtroom and then into homes,” creating a “ripple effect that policy and practice have throughout the entire city.” One member of the NYPD 12, Edwin Raymond, recorded his boss informing him that his promotion was being blocked due to his “dreads” — and his race. He’s later seen reading an evaluation riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that essentially implies Raymond has a low IQ. (In reality, he had the eighth-highest score on the sergeants’ exam, out of 900 total cops.) “When you have this kind of numbers-driven system, it’s a very slippery slope,” warns Maing. “You can see the deeply damaging impact that this can have on lives because not everybody has the strength or the resources to fight back like Pedro did.”
Since filming, four members of the NYPD 12 — Detective Derick Waller, Officer Adhyl Polanco, Officer Julio Diaz, and Officer Kareem Abdulla — have retired. Some of the officers did so early, without benefits. “A few of them would have continued on, but just felt like they were so unwelcome and [blocked] in their career advancement in the department to do anything useful or meaningful,” Maing reveals.
Today, the NYPD still insists it has no quota system; however, the department recently began mandatory “no quota” training for officers across the city.
“Crime reduction shouldn’t come at the cost of community harm,” Maing argues. “That’s kind of the mantra here.”
Crime + Punishment is available on Hulu and in select theaters Aug. 24.
Nearly a month after the Carr Fire blew into Redding, destroying hundreds of homes and causing the deaths of eight people, Kirsten Chapman recently got to see the fire’s path of destruction from a unique perspective.
After plenty of prodding and “bugging” her friend, pilot Gordy Cox, Chapman finally got a chance to go up with him for a helicopter-level view.
The Record Searchlight chartered an exclusive aerial tour of the Carr Fire from the Redding area to Whiskeytown Lake. A reporter and photographer documented the destruction from a height not previously seen, revealing the extent of damage.
Chapman rode in an available seat.
Seeing the area of the fire’s path from the air brought back memories of the July 26 night she witnessed the “fire tornado” that torched and flattened dozens of homes as it churned through west Redding.
The intense heat of the fire reduced slopes once covered with thick brush and trees to barren hills where only black nubs and spindly sticks remained. Mammoth high voltage power lines in the tornado’s path were crumpled by the tornado-like winds, and homes were left in piles of ashes and twisted steel.
“I didn’t know what it was at the time. It was a sound like I had never heard before,” Chapman said. “I thought an aircraft went down. I heard an explosion.
“The sound was amazing. It was like a freight train and a helicopter and a weird humming all at the same time. It was eerie,” Chapman said.
The day before, she had evacuated from her home on Rock Creek Road a couple miles west of Redding. The following night when the tornado moved through west Redding she was helping friends evacuate from a home off Quartz Hill Road near Lake Boulevard in Redding.
A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection report said the tornado was about 1,000 feet wide at its base. It generated gases reaching temperatures of 2,700 degrees and winds up to 165 mph, the report said.
Cal Fire believes the tornado burned in an area north of the Sacramento River and west of Quartz Hill Road, near Buenaventura Boulevard.
“Observations from witnesses and other evidence suggest that either several fire tornadoes occurred at different locations and times, or one fire tornado formed and then periodically weakened and strengthened, causing several damaged areas,” the Cal Fire report says.
Chapman’s recounting of what she saw seemed to back up the Cal Fire report. The tornado grew and lasted about an hour, 20 minutes. It moved quickly, died down and then returned again. Debris from burning buildings and trees was flying around and falling around her, she said.
“It sounded like hail,” she said.
From the helicopter she saw the house on Rock Creek Road, damaged but still standing. Numerous other homes in the hills around Redding were destroyed.
Weeks after the Carr Fire moved through the area, piles of ashes left from the homes remain. Swimming pools have turned green and streets winding through the neighborhoods were still deserted.
The fire was choosy as it moved east from Whiskeytown Lake toward Redding. While some homes were flattened by the fire, others were spared.
“I was really surprised that the house was still standing,” Chapman said of the home on Rock Creek Road.
Most people have not been allowed to clean up their homes, and debris removal has not begun in most neighborhoods where the fire burned.
For the past two weeks, crews with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control have been assessing every burned property in the county, removing hazardous materials such as asbestos, oils, pesticides, toxic cleaners and radioactive material, said Adam Palmer, who supervises the crews checking the property.
As of Thursday, crews had assessed and removed hazardous material from about half of the 1,182 structures they plan to inspect, he said.
The toxic waste removal is the first step to cleaning up properties, Palmer said. After the hazardous waste is removed, crews hired by the state plan to haul away debris. Homeowners can also hire qualified contractors, officials said.
City of Redding and county officials are still developing standards for removal of debris, which is also hazardous, officials said.
The fire, however, wasn’t limited to west Redding. The 229,651-acre fire stretches from Redding on the east to just past the Trinity County line on the west. It also stretches from Igo south of Redding to Lakehead 20 miles to the north.
The total area of the fire is roughly 359 square miles, about six times the size of Redding.
While the total loss in property value hasn’t yet been tabulated, state officials estimate the fire did $98.3 million in damage to public facilities, including roads, bridges, buildings and other structures.
North of Redding, the fire steered clear of populated areas, but further west, the fire did major damage around Whiskeytown Lake. The fire destroyed campsites and some 40 boats moored on the water in the Oak Bottom Marina area.
A total of 11 buildings around the lake were destroyed in the fire, including seven cabins at the environmental school at Whiskeytown.
The fire seemed to burn less hot in the area of Brandy Creek Marina and beach. Trees in the area of Brandy Creek facilities were still green, and buildings near the beach were not seriously damaged.
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service, remains closed as hazardous trees are removed and electricity, sewer and water is restored.
Numerous homes in the historic community of Shasta were destroyed, and tucked between Shasta and Redding, the tiny town of Keswick, population 450, was nearly obliterated.
In the town center, only two homes were spared. All the other houses were reduced to ashes.
“It wasn’t just a hot fire, it was hungry. It was crazy,” Chapman said.
Steve Morgan, a county supervisor, said on the evening of July 26 he saw the tornado forming over Redding and feared the worst.
He was packing to evacuate, worried that his house in Shasta Lake would burn down a second time. He was in Napa in 2016 when his house was destroyed in a wildfire that burned through his neighborhood.
This time, though, he and his wife were home and had time to pack their bags and take important documents with them. This time, though, their house was spared.
Morgan said he has driven through sections of the fire and was struck by the amount of destruction.
“I was surprised,” he said. “If the wind didn’t change direction it would have gone further into Redding,” he said.
A case where the original still reigns supreme is in the geeky collectibles and gear subscription box. Loot Crate is the best of the best, and has built an entire community around unboxing their loot.
The original Loot Crate set out to be “comic-con in a box,” containing at least four pop-culture related items valued at over $45 total. There’s guaranteed to be a t-shirt in every box, and they often collaborate with brands to deliver exclusive products. Each monthly box is centered around a theme – past themes have included “future,” “anti-hero,” and “origins.” There’s also a Loot Crate DX subscription for the truly dedicated nerds out there, with premium items worth at least $100. We here at Mashable have a fun time every month trying to what the new theme will bring.
Loot Crate has also branched out into all kinds of other nerdy areas. There’s an anime box, a Sanrio box (delivered every 3 months — Hello Kitty has a busy life,) and even an adorable box for pets. Gamers can subscribe to a specific box, or even pick a bi-monthly box with exclusively Halo– or Fallout-related loot. The Loot Wear offshoot has apparel subscriptions for socks, underwear, t-shirts, wearables, and “For Her.” I haven’t even gotten to the film and TV crates yet, but you get it. There’s a lot of stuff here. All nerds will be able to find something they’ll love unboxing every month.
With all this the variety, the fan community, and exclusive items, there’s just no competitor even coming close to beating Loot Crate in the geeky collectible box game.
25 years later, the stars of Boy Meets World “hate each other.”
Just kidding.
Danielle Fishel, who played Topanga in the classic ’90s sitcom, posted a cute photo of her with her former cast members, Ben Savage, Will Friedle and Rider Strong, who played Cory, his brother Eric, and his best friend Shawn, respectively. The had their mini reunion Friday — 25 years after the ABC sitcom’s debut — at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con.
The Instagram features a split screen image of the four in the ’90s, with an image below it of them hugging in the same position in present day.
“We hate each other,” Fishel jokingly captioned the photo as the four lovingly embrace.
The cast was previously reunited for the 2014 reboot/spin-off Girl Meets World, which ran for three seasons on Disney Channel and featured appearances from all four of the actors, reprising their original roles.
Sen. John McCain discusses his most enduring contribution to the Senate during an interview with The Arizona Republic on Aug. 3, 2017. Thomas Hawthorne/azcentral.com
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is required by law to fill vacancies in the state’s U.S. Senate delegation. But in the year since Sen. John McCain was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer, Ducey has avoided discussing the topic.
The governor explained his silence by saying he wants to respect McCain and his family.
With the McCain family announcement Friday that the senator will no longer seek medical treatment, Arizonans are naturally asking who Ducey might appoint to replace McCain.
The governor has only said he will notappoint himself.
But does Ducey want a temporary caretaker to hold the office only until the 2020 election? Or someone he hopes would seek re-election?
Has McCain indicated he has someone in mind to succeed him?
Ducey, who has often highlighted Arizona’s “women role models,” could appoint the first woman to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.
Ducey’s thinking on these questions is unknown, but here are names that have been floated as potential appointees:
Cindy McCain
Cindy McCain, 64, philanthropist, businesswoman, spouse, military mom, and grandmother, would be an obvious choice to fill her husband’s seat. The senator’s wife of 37 years, she has been at his side at their home in northern Arizona as he’s battled brain cancer.
In the Senate, she could represent her husband’s legacy while pursuing her own priorities.
In recent years, Cindy McCain has been an outspoken advocate against human trafficking. She has advocated for victims while tackling legislation at the federal and state levels to combat trafficking, and some of her work through the McCain Institute’s Human Trafficking Program has raised awareness nationally about the issue.
She also is a former chairwoman of HALO USA, a humanitarian organization focused on clearing war-torn communities of land mines and other unexploded bombs and devices.
In recent months, she has represented the senator at public events.
She is chairwoman and majority owner of her family’s beer-distributor business, the Hensley Beverage Co., and mother of four children, Meghan, Bridget, John Sidney McCain IV, known as Jack, and James, who goes by Jimmy.
Kirk Adams
Ducey chief of staff Kirk Adams is the governor’s point man on state and national issues, putting him at the forefront of Ducey’s conversations with the White House and Congress on issues ranging from health care to tax reform.
Adams, 45,a former state lawmaker and speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2012.
Adams is said to have loftier political ambitions, but in a September interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, he called his chief-of-staff role “the best job in the country.” Asked whether he planned to run for elected office again — and in light of John McCain’s illness, whether he was interested in serving in elected office again — Adams responded, “Sen. McCain is not resigning, and I have no plans.”
Adams has had close relationships with the influential, right-leaning Koch political network that has spent millions of dollars to influence races in Arizona and across the United States.
With Ducey gearing up for a general-election race for re-election, an appointment of his chief of staff could be politically risky.
Barbara Barrett
Barbara Barrett, 67, is the first woman Republican to run for governor in Arizona.
She is known for her business accomplishments and service on various corporate and philanthropic boards, including Raytheon, Mayo Clinic, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents.
More recently, she was chairwoman of the Aerospace Corporation’s Board of Trustees from 2013 to December 2017. A news release from the corporation issued Dec. 19 said she “elected to step down as chairman.”
Barrett and her husband, former Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, have a home in Paradise Valley as well as a ranch in Montana.
They donate to Republican candidates and philanthropic causes. They have given large sums to Arizona State University — her alma mater — and several buildings and programs bear their names.
She has never held elected office.
Jon Kyl
Former U.S. Senate Republican whip Jon Kyl, who did not seek re-election in 2012 after three terms and 26 years in Congress, is close to the governor and his team. As conservatives, the pair have forged a close bond over the years on politics and policy.
Ducey has referred to Kyl, 76, as a mentor, and leaned on him during his transition from state treasurer to governor. Most recently, the governor enlisted Kyl, a onetime practicing attorney specializing in water law, to help with negotiations to reshape Arizona’s water policy.
After leaving the Senate, Kyl joined the high-powered Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling. As senior adviser, he helps clients on issues ranging from tax, health care, defense, national security and intellectual property.
That job and his age make it unlikely that Kyl would accept an appointment that lasts years.
Kyl and Ducey met when Ducey first considered running for office, and the governor has said he views Kyl as a model public servant.
“I would say that Sen. Kyl helped me out in every way,” Ducey said in 2014. “ ’Mentor’ is not a word I would use loosely at all. I would say that Sen. Kyl has mentored me in many ways. I’m a huge fan of how he carried himself in his public career, the policies that he moved forward.”
In 2006, Time magazine named Kyl one of America’s 10 best senators; it’s a job he could easily return to if necessary.
Karrin Taylor Robson
As founder and president of a land-use strategy and real-estate development company, Karrin Taylor Robson would bring an economic-development background to the seat.
Ducey named her to the Arizona Board of Regents last year, noting her “well-respected voice” in the state’s business and political arenas.
She has worked with national groups representing major landowners and stakeholders across the U.S. on environmental law and policy on endangered species and wetlands issues.
John Shadegg
Former Congressman John Shadegg was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the “Republican Revolution” in which the GOP took control for the first time in 42 years.
Shadegg, a fiscal conservative who was respected within the House Republican caucus, gained national attention for his outspoken criticism of the Obama administration’s health-care plan. During debate of the “Obamacare” legislation, he held up an aide’s baby on the House floor while arguing it would raise the baby’s future taxes.
After seven terms, Shadegg announced in 2010 he would not seek re-election. He said he would pursue his “commitment to fight for freedom in a different venue.”
Shadegg is the son of the late Stephen Shadegg, who was a longtime strategist and ghostwriter for U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater.
Now a partner with the Polsinelli PC law firm in Phoenix, Shadegg is believed to have Senate ambitions and appeared to briefly flirt with running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in the weeks after Flake announced he would not seek re-election in 2018.
Eileen Klein
Ducey appointed Eileen Klein as state treasurer in April, after Jeff DeWit accepted a job with President Donald Trump’s administration.
She has deep public-policy experience and is well-known in business and public-policy circles.
Before her appointment as treasurer, Klein was president of the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s universities.
Klein previously served as chief of staff to former Gov. Jan Brewer and as a former director of the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning.
Matt Salmon
Matt Salmon served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before announcing his retirement last year, but he is said to be interested in the Senate. In the 2016 election cycle, “tea-party”-aligned conservative groups tried to recruit him to challenge McCain in Arizona’s Senate primary.
When he announced he was leaving Congress in February 2016, he said he wanted to spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren. “I strongly believe in the simple truth that in any man’s life, his top priority should be his family,” Salmon wrote in a column for The Arizona Republic.
Salmon, a conservative from Mesa, shares many political views with Ducey, including that government is often too intrusive.
PETA has made its opinions known often on Delmarva. Keith Demko, kdemko@delmarvanow.com
A billboard touting PETA’s push to promote humane treatment of all living creatures, specifically crabs, was erected recently in Baltimore.
The billboard — that shows a picture of a crab with the words, “I’m me, not meat” — appeared in the middle of the city’s Vegan Restaurant Week, but is directly related to the upcoming Baltimore Seafood Festival in September, said PETA spokeswoman Amber Canavan.
“We wanted to put it where people are, you know, actually eating crabs,” said Canavan. She said another of the crab billboards was erected in Idlewild, a coastal New Jersey resort.
There are, she said, no plans for a billboard in Chincoteague or anywhere else in Maryland. Other billboards in the campaign feature lobsters, fish, chickens and cows, and are placed based on the local traditions and culture that include dishes made from their flesh.
Harvey Linton of Crisfield has owned and operated Linton’s Seafood Crab Deck for 51 years, and has his own message for PETA.
“PETA can put a sign down here on the Lower Shore,” Linton said. “I think they should put a sign down here and see what happens. We’re here waiting for you, PETA!”
Linton said he’s not worried about his business despite PETA’s message about not consuming meat, fish or seafood.
“People have built their livelihoods around crabbing for generation after generation,” he said. “People have talked about crabs for as long as anyone can remember. This is a no-win proposal.”
PETA put up a billboard in Baltimore to urge Marylanders to not eat crabs…. Good luck Chuck. That’ll never happen pic.twitter.com/OENV5I6LKA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in Norfolk, Virginia, is hoping to create a public conversation about what Canavan described as cruelty to crustaceans like crabs and lobsters.
“You wouldn’t throw a living cat or dog into a pot of boiling water,” Canavan said. “So why would you do that to a crab?”
The important reason for the billboard campaign, Canavan said, is to raise awareness among people to get them thinking and talking about what actually happens to animals, including crustaceans, before they are ready for the dinner table.
“We have no reason to think in their final moments, as their limbs are being torn off or they are being cooked in boiling water, that they do not feel the same agonizing pain we would,” she said.
Canavan went on to explain how scientists have determined crabs are individuals that feel pain and communicate with one another, and even cooperate in certain activities.
“They might not look like us or be as easy for humans to relate to as dogs or cats, but they deserve to not be abused, to be recognized as individual beings,” she said.
But Linton is adamant about his heritage and business.
“If you take seafood off the table, then what?” he said. “Maybe those PETA people should go to China and Japan and other places that rely on the United States to supply their seafood. See what they’d say about this idea.”
Canavan said PETA also has a “Top 10 Vegan Seafood” list compiled by a Baltimore restaurant.
So far the billboard has done exactly what it was intended to do.
“We clearly hit a nerve,” she said. “If we hadn’t, people wouldn’t be talking about it like this.”
PETA has a contentious relationship with Delmarva, particularly on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
In July, the group called for the end of the annual Chincoteague Pony Swim after a horse accidentally died after it was chasing another horse inside a pen. Residents have also not forgotten about a pet Chihuahua that was taken from its owner’s porch by a PETA employee a few years ago and euthanized.
“That was a mistake,” said Canavan, “It never should have happened. That person is no longer employed by PETA.”
Linton said PETA has no idea what it’s up against on the Shore, saying PETA is just another group of people trying to get something going, but insists it will never fly on the Lower Shore.
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” he said.
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