Oh, you know, just two ballers hanging out. Just kidding, this photo is actually worth more than my life. McKayla forever!
Did I just do the Not Impressed face with the President..?
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) November 15, 2012
Yes. Yes you did.
Image via whitehouse/Flikr
If we weren't before, we should probably all be worrying about the ozone layer right about now: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that this past October was the fifth warmest ever, tied with the one in 2008. One repercussion of this unseasonably warm trend, says an analyst at Weather Underground, is the danger of drought, which has the potential for even more destruction and fatalities than Hurricane Sandy. During the heat wave-induced drought in the US back in 1998, 7,500 Americans died. For a visual aid, check out the infographic.
But here's a weather-related fact somewhat less likely to ruin your next dinner party: anyone born in or after April 1985 (which would make them 27) has never lived through a month that was colder than average. Ever. So, MILLENIALS (I hate that term) stop complaining, nut up and get a scarf.
'If you're 27 or younger, you've never experienced a colder-than-average month' [Grist]
Image via VladisChern/Shutterstock
Oh, sour candy, you are a cruel mistress. This three-year-old's distress as he freaks out about the sharp new taste is matched only by his big sister's glee. But don't worry, little one: where there are Warheads, there are also Airheads.
[via Tastefully Offensive]
Ever the philanthropist, the young men's lifestyle mag Complex is determined to put an end to post-coital awkwardness on both sides. Um, thanks, Complex! Last month they called guys out on the top 10 cringe-worthy things they do after sackin' a lady, and now they've come back with 20—20!—theoretically ick-inducing things that women do after sex. Let's take a look, shall we?
1. Check Instagram ("to see what Nylon just posted!!").
I don't know. I mostly just Google sandwiches after.
2. Ask if you have a girlfriend ("She should have asked before we took our clothes off!")
The first statement is true, but the second? Maybe you just have a really weird-looking dick.
3. Run out for Plan B even though you used protection.
Whoa, OK. Well.
4. Purposely tried to leave something behind.
You ever hear the one where a girl really liked a guy and just to make sure he called her she left a wallaby at his house, and then he didn't call her so she had to call him and be like, "I want my wallaby" back, and he was like, "It died?" No? Maybe that is because I made it up. Seriously though, who does this?
5. Ask for food.
Right, because God forbid that your vigorous copulation would make her want for SUSTENANCE. Get off your ass and make a bitch some Ramen.
6. Start crying.
Woof. OK, this one isn't great.
7. Ask "Will you be my boyfriend?"
Context! If it's was just some rando bar sex, then yeah. But if it's a girl you've been with for awhile, why can't she ask? I mean, it goes without saying that not all girls want the dudes they fuck to be their boyfriends, but if a girl DOES, she's allowed to.
8. Ask for cab money.
I concur, wack.
9. Freak out about semen.
See above.
10. Compare you to her last sex partner.
I mean, not to his face.
11. Start making plans for the future.
My favorite part of this is the last sentence: "You shared a beautiful moment, sure, but that doesn't mean you're obliged to take her apple picking now." Apple picking? Is that what we do now? Say hi to my mom when you're there.
12. Immediately say "I never do this."
13. Ask "Will you respect me in the morning?"
You know what? Any restrictions on women "talking" after sex in general I am just going to write off. Say whatever. Hopefully you're confident enough not to say stuff like this but if you aren't, that's OK too.
14. Take your clothes for the walk of shame.
Jesus. God. I didn't know you liked your fucking smelly Fugazi t-shirt that much. But OK.
15. Hang out in the morning in the hopes of a brunch invite.
ALL BIDDIES WANT TO DO IS TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS, EAT EGGS.
16. Start masturbating.
Sigh.
17. Cut cuddling short so she can go pee.
It might be an old wives' tale, but I've heard that peeing right after sex helps prevent UTIs. Also, she just had your penis in her, so, I don't know, give her a break. She'll be right back. Calm down.
18. Try to talk about the freaky thing you just did and what it meant.
"He put his balls in the crook of my elbow and sang 'Calendar Girl' by Neil Sedaka!! How do you guys feel about a spring wedding????"
19. Laugh.
Haha, oops.
20. Try to kiss you right after you've gone down on him.
WHAT.
Oh, it's a trick; they're admonishing guys for not kissing a girl who just went down on them. Who does that?
WHO DOES THIS?
Image via varuna/Shutterstock
As we inch closer to the full-effect version of Obamacare, on schedule for 2014, it appears that one significant group that'll be benefiting are America's divorced women. After compiling data drawn from women 26 to 64 years of age between 1996 and 2007, researchers from the University of Michigan have determined that divorced women are most likely to lose their insurance coverage in the wake of the fiscal cliff. The head of the study acknowledges their findings: "Given that approximately 1 million divorces occur each year in the U.S., and that many women get health coverage through their husbands, the impact is quite substantial," adding that:
"Insurance loss may compound the economic losses women experience after divorce and contribute to as well as compound previously documented health declines following divorce."
More specifically, 65,000 to 115,000 women lose their health coverage within months after getting divorced. Particularly in peril are moderate-income women, who aren't eligible for Medicaid or other public insurance, but are unable to afford private insurance without filing as a dependent on her husband (one-quarter of these "dependents" are uninsured within six months of their divorce). Women with their own healthcare coverage from work are less likely to lose it than the others in this group (11% compared with 17%), but it's not like jobs with benefits. This also aligns with previous findings that unmarried women were between 1.5 and 2 times more likely to be uninsured than married women.
'Divorced women face fiscal cliff and losing health insurance' [Examiner]
Patrick Chan from Canada, the men's gold medal winner, performs during the exhibition gala at the Rostelecom Cup ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2012 the Megasport Sports Center on November 11, 2012 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Epsilon/Getty Images)
Brian Kilmeade, Fox & Friends co-host, heteronormative and mysogynist cheerleader and generally crepuscular example of human bigotry, has done it again. Yesterday on Kilmeade & Friends, in response to a caller's compliment to weekend co-host Alisyn Camerota, Kilmeade joked on-air that Fox hires female co-hosts by picking them out from a Victoria's Secret catalogue and asking "Can any of these people talk?" He made a funny, you see. Let the torrent of LOLs commence.
Camerota responded, laughingly, "YOU'RE CRAZY!!1111" Indeed.
In June, co-host Gretchen Carlson walked off the set when Kilmeade said that "women are everywhere. We're letting them play golf and tennis now." Kilmeade later defended himself by saying he was just having a yuk. Fox is hardly a first-time offender here, as the network's news chief Roger Ailes has previously admitted that he's concerned with whether female anchors are "attractive" enough for on-air work.
'Fox's Kilmeade On How Fox Hires Female Hosts: "We Go Into The Victoria's Secret Catalogue And We Said, 'Can Any Of These People Talk?'" [Media Matters]
Since we inexplicably still care about this, I guess, both of the women with whom David Petraeus had his sexual dalliances have been over in the vicinity of WHOTUS (I keep trying to make WHOTUS happen; it's not going to happen) in the last few years. The only real-ish gossip here is that Tampa "socialite" Jill Kelley, who the media learned of after Petraeus had already resigned due to his affair with Broadwell, has been to the White House three times in the last few months—once for a tour, and twice to have dinner with her sister and an unnamed White House staffer who met Kelley and her family at an air force base. The last time she broke bread with this dude was on November 4th, 5 days before Petraeus publicly left his post as director of the CIA due to "poor judgment" regarding his affair with Broadwell.
The media's now painting Kelley and her twin sister as sort of the Middleton siblings of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, where they've developed reputations as "aggressive social climbers" who "flirted their way into the good graces of high-level officers" all over the base. It was also disclosed a few days ago that Kelley has exchanged "flirtatious emails" with Joe Allen, a top commander in Afghanistan. If you're still confused about how this all connects, this janky-ass Fox News affair flowchart is kind of helpful, though it begs the question of why Alice McCutcheon's chart on The L Word is more comprehensible than that of, you know, a major news outlet. The Daily Beast has taken to calling MacDill—specifically, the boulevard that extends from downtown into the base itself—the "Wisteria Lane" of Tampa. Although it's not explicitly mentioned why Desperate Housewives is the specific reference, besides the partying, one can only assume it refers to Kelley and her fellow "bored housewives" lurking around and trying to grab some unsuspecting military peen. (As if the actual military peen have no autonomy here.)
For her part, Broadwell spoke to a national security staff member about Afghanistan and Pakistan policy back in June 2009 and attended a briefing on the subject with 20 others in the summer of 2011. White House officials say that neither woman has met President Obama, probably because he is too busy doing THISSSS.
'Tampa's ‘Wisteria Lane': Petraeus, Broadwell, Kelley-and a Culture of Climbing' [The Daily Beast]
'Women in Petraeus scandal had visited White House' [USA Today]
Oscar-nominated Aussie actress Jacki Weaver, who plays Bradley Cooper's mother in Silver Linings Playbook, wrote in her 2005 memoir Much Love, Jac that she's a firm believer in sex on the first date: "Otherwise, how do you know if a second date is worth the effort?"
When New York Magazine asked Weaver about her opinion of Jennifer Lawrence's character Tiffany, a bed-hopping widow who's referred to as sexually easy throughout the film, she reminded the interviewer of celebrity culture's rich history of slut-shaming since the golden days of MGM.
"Sexism is alive and well! We were saying this forty years ago. I'm an optimist, so I like to think we've progressed in some ways - in Australia, we get equal pay. But yeah, it's disappointing to think that still goes on. Do you think Kristen Stewart got into trouble because Robert Pattinson was so loved? I remember I was a little girl when Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher from America's Sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, and the reaction back then was enormous! And Angelina Jolie was in trouble, too, for taking a husband away from another America's Sweetheart. Don't take husbands from America's Sweethearts."
PREACH. Oh, and re: Kristen Stewart, definite yes.
Weaver also divulges a interesting tidbit about how actually massive Bradley Cooper is:
"I'm under five feet, so some of the crew were teasing me, "How could you possibly give birth to Bradley Cooper?" Because he's such a big boy. He's like 6"1'."
'Jacki Weaver on Silver Linings Playbook, Playing Bradley Cooper's Mom, and Slut-Shaming' [Vulture]
A sharp, rather troubling essay by New York Times contributor Carina Chocano is running today about women, age and the media; it recalls, of course, all of the obvious anecdotes about the supposed "expiration dates" of models and actresses ("A friend knows an actress whose burglar alarm code - 2828 - serves as a reminder to her of the age she must never surpass") and mentions an episode of The Mindy Project in which Mindy Kaling (33, playing 31)'s blind date with Ed Helms (playing 38, and "who cares," asks Chocano) is interrupted by a phone call. She snaps at the caller, "Do you know how difficult it is for a chubby 31-year-old woman to go on a legit date with a guy who majored in economics at Duke?"
"The point is," writes Chocano, "that we're meant to identify with Mindy's desperation and buy into it, to perform whatever mental contortions are necessary to look upon her with pity, and despise her just a little for reaching 31 with nothing to show for it, except, of course, a medical degree." She adds that it's these touches, "constantly reinforcing the idea that a 33-year-old woman like Kaling is somehow "older" than a man who is seven years older than she," leads to "cognitive dissonance on a mass scale."
In this way, even a show that has busted more than a few primetime boundaries (Kaling being of average weight and a woman of color) is carrying on the same kind of hysterically ageist crap you see on any bullshit half-hour CBS sitcom. I mean, yes, duh, The Mindy Project has never claimed to be any kind of feminist polemic ("Dear Lord, Please make this date be good. May he have the wealth of Mayor Bloomberg, the personality of Jon Stewart, the face of Michael Fassbender… the penis of Michael Fassbender"), and it's unfair to expect this from a female-run show the same way it'd be unfair to expect any kind of similar representation from a male showrunner. But it does indicate a larger problem with the wide gap between the 47% of the population of women 40 or above versus the 27% of these women portrayed on television. (Compare this with the 20-30 female age group, which makes up 39% total and 71% of the women on TV.) Says Martha Lauzen, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University:
"When any group is not featured in the media, they have to wonder, 'Well, what part do I play in this culture?' There's actually an academic term for that. It's called ‘symbolic annihilation.'"
Chocano says that she's looked and sounded younger than her age for most of her life, but it's hasn't necessarily been beneficial: it mostly results in patronizing encounters with potential employers and landlords. She also points to the annual "Fabulous At Every Age" issue in Harper's Bazaar, which, although obviously age-inclusive—since that's the damn POINT—has its own problems:
"By the time we arrived at 70-plus, a small photo of Barbara Walters was dwarfed by a picture of a 16-year-old girl who could have been her great-granddaughter, looking sad in her dowager costume."
FUUUUU.
‘Girls Love Math. We Never Stop Doing It.' [NYT]
Image via arbit /< href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock
One Corgi. One kitten. Best friends cuddling, napping. All is right with the world. And for one minute and twenty-seven seconds, every corner of the universe is ephemerally lit. Voldemort is defeated. Kim Kardashian, if you're watching: this is a great argument against that Israel-Palestine thing you're so worried about.
[via Buzzfeed]
Things I know about this week's Saturday Night Live host Jeremy Renner:
Things I know about this week's Saturday Night Live musical guest Adam Levine:
Have a good Saturday night!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that most people have that one toxic barnacle of a human being that they can't seem to scrape off their leg. Perhaps it's the old college roommate who once chirped while watching you devour cheese fries, "Wow, you have to be sooo confident to eat like that!" Or an ex-boyfriend whose Twitter you sometimes normal-read and sometimes hate-read. Or that one ass-kissing co-worker who sometimes throws out your leftovers in the office fridge WAY before they've gone bad, but also she hugged you when you were crying in the bathroom one time?
Anyway, you kind of have to give that person a present. Any suggestions?
So, this is the worst! Up to 27 animals died in their farm facility during the making of The Hobbit trilogy, which the wranglers involved in the production claim was "a death trap." Although the American Humane Association says no animals were harmed during the actual filming, they acknowledge that the wranglers' complaints highlight a blind spot in their ability to police the actual set, but not the areas where the animals are kept.
The horse grounds were sprinkled with "bluffs, sinkholes and broken-down fencing," on which horses broke their backs, cut their legs, fell into streams and had digestive problems. A spokesman for director Peter Jackson has acknowledged that the deaths of two horses, in particular, were avoidable and conditions were improved immediately afterwards. PETA is now planning protests at The Hobbit premieres in New Zealand, America and the U.K. Goddamn fucking hobbits. [CBS News]
Rupert Sanders will not be directing the Snow White & The Huntsman sequel. [Radar Online]
Cameron Diaz says that going nude or scantily clad for photographs and certain movie scenes is empowering for her: "I'm not some young girl with the photographer going, ‘Will you take your clothes off?' I'm like [mimes stripping], ‘How does this look?' They're like, ‘Today we're not going to put anything other than bras and heels on you,' and I'm like, ‘These heels are not high enough.' I'm a woman, I know how to handle myself. I know what I feel comfortable doing and I know my sexuality... I think every woman does want to be objectified. There's a little part of you at all times that hopes to be somewhat objectified, and I think it's healthy." [Channel24.co.za]
Just a few days after taking someone to task for bringing up Twinkies at a meeting ("I'm on Saturday Night Live enough") Chris Christie actually was on Saturday Night Live. He talked about how his infamous "Governor" fleece is fused to his skin. [NYDN]
Yeah babe call me maybe: 732-939-2906-dm, don't give out , Sitch
— Michael Sorrentino (@ItsTheSituation) November 19, 2012
[Twitter]
"They're like these weird nutrition bars my mom uses to lose weight." —Cady Heron, Mean Girls.
Yesterday, we implored you to help us brainstorm some gifts for the toxic friend in your life, and came up with some ideas of our own. As a result, this roundup is as diverse and inclusive as there are types of terrible fucking people in the world with like, one or two redeeming qualities, who you grudgingly deal with on a daily basis. Get them something on this list. Or, you know, see a shrink.
1. Chateau Diana cabernet sauvignon. This, White Zinfandel and Boone's Farm are the wine of champions. "I could have gotten you a nice Malbec, but, like, it's not like you'd know the difference, hahaha." $6.99 [Shop-Rite]
2. A candle. Explains commenter @lunchcoma, "It's the universal signal that you realize you owe the person a present, but don't actually want to put much time or thought into its purchase. If the frenemy is closer to the enemy side of the spectrum, select one with an especially foul scent." Foul scents are obviously a personal thing, but I hate roses, so let's just use that. Extra points for one of those massive jar-style candles. This would also work. $27.99 [Yankee Candle]
3. Baby picture frame. For the frenemy with child, this generic, vaguely creepy frame won't run you that much, and might make her stop talking incessantly about said child. (Like when you held the kid that time, and she threw back her head and laughed: "YOU! Holding a BABY!") $19.99 [Amazon]
4. The Office: Season 7 on DVD. Commenter @GoAxAlice is taking no mercy this year: this is only the highlight of a list that also includes a yellow Sharpie, a 50 Shades of Grey book on tape, a $5 gift card to Olive Garden and paint-by-numbers you made. Unframed. (As @julieanne responded, "Damn that's cold.") $39.98 [NBC Universal Store]
5. A mid-priced Groupon for something kind of useless in an out-of-the-way area. All I want for Christmas is for my frenemy to go to Queens and get mink eyelashes! ("Really? You've never thought about mink eyelashes? I mean, maybe you don't need to, but I totally thought of you when I saw this.") Another good Groupon option: a colonic in Midwood. $45.00 [Groupon]
6. Any weird-ass off-brand Dollar Store chocolate. Also works for candles (see #2). $1.00 [Dollar Tree]
7. Wedding book. Commenter @Pegasaurus perceptively writes, "The trick is slathering your malicious glee with dollops and dollops of innocent sincerity... [One example is] a wedding planning book. Best if she and her SO have been dating 4EVER and you know it's a sore point. ('Never to early to start planning!')" $12.47 [Barnes & Noble]
8. A tacky, touchy-feely calendar. "365 Meditations and Reflectons For Women Who Do Too Much: The Page-A-Day 2013 Desk Calendar," or anything else found in the dreaded "Women's Inspiration" section, often heavily discounted right after Christmas, is perfect for the frenemy in your life. If not this, then how about a sassy old cartoon woman? $12.99 [Calendars.com]
9. A Brookstone gift card for approximately $9.99. Too little to buy a neck massager, too much to waste. Also known as "catalyst for your frenemy to spend $50 or over on a neck massager she'll never use." $9.99 [a href=<"http://www.brookstone.com/Brookstone-Gift-Cards">Brookstone]
10. For the ex-boyfriend who has everything, there's nothing like some foot odor spray to remind him his shit stinks. (Good whether or not he actually has foot odor problems or not—gotta keep him on his toes.) Also a great gift for the guy you knew in high school who's currently crashing on your couch in between music festivals but whose hygiene seems to have been lost at Burning Man. $10.00 [The Body Shop]
After being roundly chastised for having—I mean, I guess, kind of—an opinion of sorts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and Tweeting about it, Kim Kardashian is going to make it up to the people of the Middle East by visiting Kuwait and Bahrain, and she's "determined" to learn about the conflict. She is also planning to "make appearances at some Millions of Milkshakes shops opening in the two countries." Yeah, we were serious about that milkshake thing. But, actually who doesn't love a milkshake?
Word to the wise, Kim: get an international power converter. The first night of my Birthright trip, all of the girls broke their Chi and/or Sedu hair straighteners by trying to shove the plug in the foreign electrical socket and I still hear the screaming. [Bossip]
After lying to cops about a car accident in L.A. last summer, Lindsay Lohan's probation in a jewelry theft case will be revoked as soon as a criminal lawyer files against her. So, like, she could get arrested at any point from here on out, leaving us all wondering what the FUCK she was thinking when she took that jewelry besides "OMG, where is that Bacardi Razz I put down, you guys I totally feel like Danny Oceannnnn." [Ace Showbiz]
So this is kind of a "boy who cried wolf" situation, but a close friend of Kate Middleton's says that she's pregnant and that she and Prince William are going to announce they're expecting in December. The friend's name is Jessica Hay and she's known Kate since she was fourteen. Hopefully you didn't just take a giant, fame-whoring dump on your friendship by spreading this rumor, Jessica Hay. [Examiner]
Prince William wins a poll for Most Popular Royal that I'm sure he totally gives shits about. [Daily Mail]
Nicki Minaj employs dubious religious imagery in the video for the song "Freedom." Aldous Snow said it best:
When I had this costume designed, I said 'Imagine an African... white... Christ, from Space. And this is what they came back with. An African, white space Christ. That's how it… Well see that's just the concept, you know? Obviously I'm not saying that I'm an African white space Christ, that'd be ridicu—that's just not for me. That's for other people… That's for other people to decide. If I'm like Christ.
And that slo-mo hawk is killing me, smalls.
[Bossip]
Although Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber are back together, Gomez remains "far from happy with how he has treated her" and has reconciled with him with "much heartache... things are still volatile between them." You guys are too motherfucking young for this. No mortgage, no dependents, no crappy shared neon-green Cadillac Seville you both need to drive to work, just get the fuck OUT. [Page Six]
"Last night was awesome/
Super fucking awesome/
It was me, myself, and I, and her/
We had ourselves a foursome."
—Lil Wayne, poet laureate of the United States, on "I Wanna Bang You," a new single with Paris Hilton. [TMZ]
Jennifer Lawrence told Jay Leno that she got into a car accident when she saw people marching in a breast cancer parade who wore sashes with the word "boob" on them: "I thought it was saying 'Boo Boo,'' and so I was like, 'Whoa, does that mean there's Honey Boo Boo?' So I started craning my neck and I saw a little girl, and I was like, 'That's Honey Boo Boo!'" Her excitement actually caused her to rear-end the people in front of her. "I'm sorry that I hit your family," she said to them. "I thought I saw Honey Boo Boo."
She also told a really weird story about going to a strip club with friends in Georgia while shooting a movie.
"It wasn't really a strip club, it was kind of a dive bar with senior citizen strippers. So I got a lap dance from Little Bo Peep, who was very bossy and kept getting on top of me, which I didn't really want to reciprocate, but then she goes, 'I'm gonna bend over, and don't you touch me!' And I was like, 'Don't you worry about it.' And then she inserted her breast into my mouth. I almost took a bath in hydrogen peroxide."
[E!, Contact Music]
A judge extended Modern Family star Ariel Winter's sister Shanelle Gray's temporary guardianship for a few more weeks as the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services confirms that they found evidence of emotional abuse by Winter's mom. Meanwhile, Winter's father asserts that Gray's simply trying to use Winter to further her own acting career. Look for their NBC spinoff, Shitty Family. [E!]
Lindsay Lohan wore a gold gown with keyhole cutouts to a Liz & Dick premiere and looked slightly crazed. I do love her hair color, though. [Daily Mail]
While Barbara Walters is reportedly pissed as fuck that LiLo blew off the interview she initially agreed to, and then went on Jay Leno instead, Lohan defended herself, saying that it just wasn't the right time: "I love her, I'm a big fan of Barbara Walters. So when it's right, she knows she'll be the first person I sit down with." [NBC New York, TMZ]
Lohan regrets nothing. No. Thing. [Us Weekly]
There are rather dubious reports that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner never see each other and he's off "acting like a single man" thanks to "the growing success of [his] latest flick, Argo... Ben really wants to win an Oscar for this film, and he's become pretty obsessive about it," says a source. "They're at a breaking point right now." Other sources deny this rumor, but hey, if the Great Arnett/Poehler Split of 2012 taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected. [Gossip Cop]
Ke$ha has a bra made from 1,000 teeth that her fans have sent her. Who doesn't? [Buzzfeed]
The champion eaters among us know that Thanksgiving is a marathon, not a sprint. Lady Gaga, who was staying at a house in Peru before her concert in Lima on Friday, was going for a fourthmeal of festive leftovers in the nude (I hear you, Gaga; the turkey sweats are real) when this happened, as she recounted on Twitter:
#MONSTERFACT when gaga is asleep try to break into the garage, sing loud as possible, + ring the doorbell repeatedly #happeningnow #badkids
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) November 23, 2012
She added:
thanksgiving story: woke up for leftovers in kitchen (naked)- stumbled on security camera revealing 35 monsters in my garage #why #iloveu
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) November 23, 2012
Mother Monster didn't call the cops and displayed admirable good humor about the whole situation: "I should be mad i guess except i tried to figure out how to slide stuffing under the door, but theres no cat-flap." [Gather Celebs]
Even more props: Gaga spent Thanksgiving at Lima's Infant Jesus of Prague home for sexually abused girls between the ages of two and thirteen. Also, her blue hair looks awesome. [Fox News]
First lady Michelle Obama leans down to smell the official White House Christmas Tree after it was delivered to the White House, as her daughters Malia Obama (R) and Sasha Obama look on, on November 23, 2012 in Washington, DC. The tree is a 19-foot Fraser Fir from Peak Farms in North Carolina, which is owned by Rusty and Beau Estes. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
Ireland's government-funded Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) watchdog organization has announced that they're launching an investigation into the death of Savita Halappanavar, the 31-year-old dentist who was denied an abortion after doctors informed her that she would miscarry but could not remove the fetus until its heartbeat officially stopped. Two and a half days later, it did—but it was also too late for Halappanavarm, who was was rushed to University Hospital Galway and died of septicaemia and E.coli ESBL shortly after.
However, the inquiry is (understandably) unlikely to placate her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, who believes that HIQA's findings won't be neutral and blames the two-day timelapse and pregnancy termination refusal for his wife's blood poisoning. As the solicitor representing Mr. Halappanvar puts it, "My client has always made his position very clear... He wants a public inquiry. He has made it clear he wants to get to the truth of the matter, so I don't think that the framework of HIQA will suffice."
If there's any silver lining to this tragedy, it's that the 20-year debate and confusion over abortion in Ireland may finally come to a head. Irish law isn't clear precisely on when the threat to the mother's life is enough to justify an abortion, so it's largely left up to the subjectivity of individual doctors (and, of course, their own personal beliefs). Halappanavar and his legal team hope to submit their case to the European Court of Human Rights, who took on Ireland's abortion ban back in 2010.
A 10,000-strong protest marched in Dublin last Saturday in response to Halappanavar's death and held a candlelight vigil outside the office of Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
'New inquiry begins into case of woman who died after she was refused abortion in Ireland' [World News/NBC News]
After a tumultuous dinner date last week that ended with Selena Gomez reportedly storming off, it looks like maybe, possibly, she and professional swag-nugget Justin Bieber might be back together. Although Gomez wasn't in attendance at the 2012 American Music Awards—to which Bieber took his mom Pattie Mallette, Gomez came to the AMA afterparty with him and they may have HELD HANDS (?!?!?!) while leaving the Nokia Theater. There is also one drunken