A rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, involving some members of the city's beloved football team has drawn national attention. The Times said that it was a notable case because it was "a sexual assault accusation in the age of social media, when teenagers are capturing much of their lives on their camera phones ... andā¦
During the Cold War, the U.S. Army pursued a research program that used soldiers as lab rats to test the effects of various chemical agentsāranging "from tear gas and LSD to highly lethal nerve agents, like VX." As a huge class action suit against the government by those who were experimented upon nears its trialā¦
Ever since the Jimmy Savile sex scandal brought a bunch of BBC executives tumbling down, the UK has been, shall we say, more sensitive to the fact that famous people might have committed a bunch of sex crimes back in the Good Old Days, when sex crimes were not something that famous people much worried about. Theā¦
Sometimes you come across a story from abroad that is so weird, but reported in such a straightforward, dull manner, that you think it's a mistranslation. The story behind this picture, which shows an impostor signing a massive fake business deal with the Ukranian government, is one of them.
In 2010, Philadelphia weatherman John Bolaris was reportedly roofied and scammed out of $43,000 by two female Latvian escorts as part of a Miami-based crime ring organized by the Russian mob.
In 1996, cycling champion Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer. By 1999, he had recovered and made a miraculous return to win the Tour de France. Five years later, the LIVESTRONG charity, which battles cancer, started distributing yellow rubber bracelets emblazoned with "LIVESTRONG" in honor of Armstrong'sā¦
The controversy was immediate. People were on TLC's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo like flies on pig shit. Or maybe our collective revelry in the show's trashiness resembled a pig in shit. Whatever it was, a metaphor involving pigs and shit is apt for a show that featured a rented pet teacup pig Glitzy pooping on a kitchenā¦
Remember Mark Sanford? He was the South Carolina governor who disappeared for five days a few years back to go have sex with his Argentine mistress in Buenos Aires but told campaign aides that he was on the Appalachian Trial, doing whatever it is people do when they're on the Appalachian Trail. Anyway, it turns outā¦
The British monarchy is an expensively maintained tourist attraction, chiefly composed of distant cousins who have married one another, the peasant daughter of a local party planner, and several large hats. Anyone could be the head of it. Queen Elizabeth II, a corgi wearing a monocle, London-born Mischa Barton.ā¦
Super-intense, super-popular fitness fad/ cult/ greatest-thing-ever Crossfit has more than a few injuries and internet jokes: an existential threat that, many Crossfit leaders and gym owners fear, could destroy the happy nationwide fitness utopia they've created.
Shoes, dropping, everywhere: British prosecutors announced they're charging eight new and very high profile people with criminal phone hacking in the endless News Corp tabloid phone hacking scandal. The biggest names: former News of the World Editors Rebekah Brooks (a top lieutenant and trusted confidante of Rupertā¦
Jennifer Carroll is Florida's Lieutenant Governor, second in command to the insane and unpopular Rick Scott. Carroll is one of the few nationally prominent black female Republicans. (She is also insane, but that's a topic for another day.) A former aide to Carroll says that she walked in on her in a sexuallyā¦
OK, it's not quite The Da Vinci Code or even The Godfather: Part III, but a scandal rocking the Vatican is aways better than no scandal rocking the Vatican.
"Tom Cruise like I've never seen him!" is how Oprah Winfrey described it on May 23, 2005, at the top of an episode of her show that would go on to become its most memorable: the one with the couch jumping. She wasn't lying. Cruise was known for being guarded and tight-lipped about his private life, and his effusiveā¦
Remember that awesome tyrannosaur skeleton you made all those great plans for last week? It was sold this weekend for over $1 million to an anonymous bidder (you?). Also, the president of Mongolia is claiming it was stolen.
The deliciously slow-falling dominoes of the News Corp phone hacking scandal continue to falllllll: Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World editor, News International boss, and Rupert Murdoch bestie, is going to be charged with "conspiring to pervert the course of justice" for attempting to conceal documents and dataā¦
A CNN investigation has found that a charity called the Disabled Veterans National Foundation suffered from gross mismanagement problems including, among other things, the fact that instead of giving money to veterans, it spent all of its money with a direct marketing firm called Quadriga, "which owns two direct-mailā¦
The public relations industry is happy to swallow ordinary happy life events, besmirch them, and poop them back out. It is a virtual besmirchment machine. This is PR Dummies. Besmirching the besmirchers, every week.
Earlier this month, Upper East Side mom Anna Gristina was arrested and charged with running a high end brothel catering to "powerful men." So who were those powerful men? The first big name has leaked, and it is... utterly unsurprising.
Uh oh, big scandal the in the world of Le Bordeaux ("wine"): influential "wine collector" Rudy Kurniawan has been arrested by real live FBI agents and charged with fraud for attempting to auction off more than 100 bottles of wine (for more than $1.3 million) about whose provenance he lied. Can you imagine? Someā¦
