Noted racist and child labor proponent Paul LePage just wants us to be safe. That’s why he told us to watch out for “D-Money, Smoothie, and Shifty” and why he saved us from those pesky labor murals. Now, he’s trying to save us from the biggest threat of all: The dreaded “Ziki Fly.”

Have you been paying attention to the latest Matt Drudge-powered anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory festering in the most absurd pocket of the right-wing internet? I hope not! Assuming you haven’t here is some context for the above image:

Strange things not yet explained by science are happening in different parts of the world right now:

Floundering Kmart will begin stocking its stores with cheap, liquidated products from companies that are going bankrupt. Kmart is transitioning its brand from “shitty version of Target” to “Big Lots with a shitty snack bar.”

As the presidential election progresses, Wall Street grows increasingly fearful that the “radical” economic proposals of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump could become a reality. They might want to worry about the “mainstream” candidates as well.

If you can no longer gain national attention for your cause by illegally seizing a bird refuge and filling its environs with your poop, you might as well do this, I guess.

If you’ll recall, a few days ago, Heidi Cruz revealed that the human flesh mask she married has a habit of calling out of the blue and making noises at her set to song. Now, we get to hear that singing bag of skin for our very selves.

FEELS LIKE -25°, NEW YORK—It was the coldest February 14th on record in New York City in 100 years, but inside The Ainsworth club in Manhattan, no one was dressed for the weather. Over 400 young, unmarried women had wedged themselves into sleeveless, Herve Leger-style bandage dresses and open-toed shoes to spend roughly three hours in the same room as several male castoffs from The Bachelor TV franchise, on Valentine’s Day.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance, has moved to recuse himself from the criminal investigation into (now apparently recanted) allegations that former Governor Eliot Spitzer assaulted a 26-year-old woman he was with at the Plaza Hotel Saturday, the New York Times reports. The investigation has reached a “standstill,” police said.

“New York City’s scarcity of inexpensive land is often cited as an impediment to building more affordable housing, but the comptroller’s office has identified more than 1,000 city-owned vacant lots across the boroughs that have been sitting idle, most for more than 30 years.”

Car maker Ford has ended its relationship with the climate-denial lobbyist group ALEC, the Guardian reports, joining tech companies like Google, Facebook, eBay, and Yelp, as well as the energy companies like Shell and BP in distancing themselves from the Koch-funded network.

At least 28 people were killed and 61 wounded by a car bomb that went off during evening rush hour near parliament in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. Officials said the bomb had targeted buses carrying military personnel.

Tonight’s going to be weird. In one corner, we have Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson engaging in an ostensibly civil “town hall” on CNN (the other three get their shot tomorrow night). In the other corner, Donald Trump and Joe Scarborough will be doing... something. Either way, we’ll be liveblogging every last second of it.

This afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Twitter account posted the above photo of a sandwich at the recently reopened Carnegie Deli, along with the caption “America.” It got us wondering: Is de Blaz more of a Carnegie partisan or a Katz’s guy? The answer, his people told Gawker, is neither.

At a campaign event on Tuesday, Atlanta rapper and Bernie Sanders-surrogate Killer Mike referenced something anti-racism activist and feminist Jane Elliot had told him: “A uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States.” In an email to Gawker, Elliot did not dispute the accuracy of the quote.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has Donald Trump in second place, at 26 percent, to first-place Ted Cruz, at 28 percent. This is, as Philip Bump notes, “the first major poll in which Trump hasn’t led the field nationally since October.” That is another way of saying this poll is an outlier.

On this Wednesday of Kristin, we bring you glad tidings from the past:

Two longtime Los Angeles Police Department officers are accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting women while on duty, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced today. James Nichols and Luis Valenzuela, the alleged perpetrators, were partners, working out of the department’s Hollywood precinct.

China—already a world leader in smog, Donald Trump shout-outs, and troubling viral hits—is now looking to conquer new ground. Alien ground, specifically.

One of the most persistent and least useful arguments of this presidential campaign season is taking place among Democrats who (mostly) talk past one another about how economic inequality and racial inequality are or are not linked. Does someone have a good proposal? Let’s hear it.